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The 
Militant  Proletariat 


BY 

AUSTIN  LEWIS 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

CO-OPERATIVE 


Copyright  1911 
By  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company 


UNIVERSITY  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA  LlBr.. 


CONTENTS 

Socialism  and  the  Proletariat 5 

The  Militant  Proletariat 40 

What  is  a  Union  ? 99 

Politics    153 


The  Militant  Proletariat 

I 

SOCIALISM  AND  THE  PROLETARIAT 

The  Socialist  movement  has  based  itself  upon 
the  proletariat.  That  fact  is  imdeniable.  From 
the  time  of  the  Marxian  statement  in  the  Com- 
munist Manifesto,  there  could  no  longer  be  any 
doubt  that  henceforward  the  Socialist  movement 
relied  upon  the  proletarian  class  alone,  as  the 
stimulating  factor  in  the  social  revolution.  This 
was  not  always  the  case,  for  the  early  Socialists, 
who  had  proclaimed  their  Utopian  ideas  prior  to 
the  publication  of  the  Communist  Manifesto,  had 
calculated  upon  something  quite  other  than  pro- 
letarianism  for  their  victory  over  the  oppression 
and  misery  with  which  they  saw  themselves  sur- 
rounded, and  which  it  was  their  benevolent  and 
philanthropic  mission  to  destroy.  The  early  So- 
cialists had  sought  to  impress  their  ideas  upon 
the  more  fortunate,  and,  by  a  sort  of  religion 
and  experimental  society  building,  to  purge  the 
world  of  the  evils  which  possessed  it  and  pre- 
pare for  a  paradisiacal  condition  of  equality  and 
well-being.  Against  these  concepts  the  pioneers 
of  the  modern  Socialist  movement  were  com- 
pelled to  struggle  at  the  very  inception,  and  thus 


6  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

was  written  the  Communist  Manifesto,  the  first 
proclamation  of  the  fundamental  principles  now 
underlying  the  world-wide  Socialist  movement, 
which  asks  the  question,  "In  what  relation  do 
the  Communists  stand  to  the  proletarians  as  a 
whole?"  and  replies,  "The  Communists  do  not 
form  a  separate  party  opposed  to  other  working 
class  parties.  They  have  no  interests  separate 
and  apart  from  those  of  the  proletariat  as  a 
whole.  They  do  not  set  up  any  sectarian  prin- 
ciples of  their  own  by  which  to  shape  and  mould 
the  proletarian  movement."  In  other  words,  the 
Communists,  who  are  the  modern  Socialists,  the 
term  Communist  having  been  used  merely  to 
differentiate  them  from  the  Utopians  who  had 
brought  the  term  Socialist  into  disrepute,  do  not 
consider  themselves  as  apart  from  the  pro- 
letariat but  as  constituting  part  of  the  proletarian 
army,  differentiating  themselves  from  the  or- 
dinary proletarian  only  by  their  knowledge  of  the 
direction  and  end  of  the  march.  Thus  the 
Manifesto  declares,  "The  Communists  are  there- 
fore, on  the  one  hand,  practically  the  most  ad- 
vanced and  resolute  section  of  the  working  class 
parties  of  every  country,  that  section  which 
pushes  forward  all  others;  on  the  other  hand, 
theoretically  they  have  over  the  great  mass  of 
the  proletariat  the  advantage  of  clearly  under- 
standing the  line  of  march,  the  conditions  and 
the  ultimate  general  results  of  the  proletarian 
movement." 

There  is  no  question,  therefore,  that  the  So- 
cialist movement  from  its  early  stages  has  re- 
garded the  proletariat  as  the  means  of  revolution, 
as  the  chief  agent  in  accomplishing  the  over- 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  / 

throw  of  existing  social  and  political  conditions 
and  substituting  for  them  something  quite  other, 
and  this  notion  by  no  means  expired  with  its 
enunciation  in  the  Manifesto.  It  has  remained 
and  still  remains  as  the  very  foundation  doc- 
trine of  the  Socialist  Movement.  Marx  said, 
"The  proletarian  movement  is  the  self-conscious  -~| 
independent  movement  of  the  immense  majority 
in  the  interest  of  the  immense  majority."  In 
another  place,  he  states,  "The  proletarian,  the 
lowest  stratum  of  our  present  society,  cannot 
stir,  cannot  raise  itself  up,  without  the  whole 
superincumbent  structure  of  official  society  being 
sprung  into  the  air,"  The  concluding  words  of 
the  Communist  Manifesto  in  which  the  working 
class  of  the  world  is  called  upon  to  unite,  upon  the 
ground  that  it  has  only  chains  to  lose  and  a 
world  to  gain,  have  become  a  universal  war  cry 
of  the  Socialist  movement,  are  translated  into 
all  modern  languages  and  have  already  produced 
a  bulky  mass  of  commentary.  They  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  very  essence  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment. Even  today  they  have  not  lost  their 
potency  and  the  contest  which  is  waged  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Socialist  movement  has  its  practical 
inception  in  the  difference  of  opinion  as  to  how 
far  a  given  line  of  action  represents  or  fails  to 
represent  proletarian  interests. 

The  ideas  of  the  proletarian  are  regarded, 
therefore,  as  the  materialization  of  the  Socialist 
philosophy.  The  ideas  of  the  proletarian  are  the 
ideas  of  socialism;  the  aspirations  of  the  pro- 
letarian are  the  aspirations  of  socialism,  the 
victory  of  socialism  is  at  once  the  triumph  and 
the  annihilation  of  the  proletarian,  for,  by  the 


8  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

institution  of  the  socialist  state,  the  proletarian 
vanishes,  he  becomes  translated  into  something 
different,  namely,  the  citizen  of  a  co-operative 
commonwealth. 

The  later  exponents  of  socialism  have  been 
notably  inspired  by  this  view.  Thus,  Liebknecht 
says,  "For  our  party  and  for  our  party  tactics 
there  is  but  one  valid  basis,  the  basis  of  the 
class  struggle  out  of  which  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic Party  has  sprung  up,  and  out  of  which 
alone  it  can  draw  the  necessary  strength  to  bid 
defiance  to  every  storm  and  to  all  its  enemies. 
The  founders  of  our  party,  Marx,  Engels,  and 
Lasselle,  impressed  upon  the  workingmen  the 
necessity  of  the  class  character  of  our  movement 
so  deeply  that  down  to  a  very  recent  time  there 
were  no  considerable  deviations  or  getting  off 
the  track"  (Liebknecht,  "No  Compromise,"  Kerr, 
Chicago). 

Not  only  so  but  the  writer  already  quoted 
considers  that  the  considerable  admixture  of  an 
element  other  than  proletarian  is  actually  in- 
imical to  the  socialist  movement ;  thus  he  says : 
"In  short  we  have  now  in  Germany  a  phenome- 
non which  has  been  observable  in  France  for  half 
a  century  and  longer,  and  which  has  contributed 
much  to  the  confusion  of-  the  party  relations  in 
France,  viz.,  that  a  part  of  the  radical  bour- 
geoisie rallies  round  the  Socialist  flag  without 
understanding  the  nature  of  socialism.  This 
political  socialism,  which  in  fact  is  only  philan- 
thropic humanitarian  radicalism,  has  retarded 
the  development  of  socialism  in  France  exceed- 
ingly. It  has  diluted  and  blurred  the  principles 
and  weakened  the  socialist  party  because  it  has 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  ^ 

brought  with  it  troops  upon  which  no  reliance 
could  be  plased  in  the  decisive  movement." 

The  tactics  of  the  Socialist  movement  are 
thus  described  by  Liebknecht:  "This  tactic  con- 
sists in  keeping  clear  the  class  character  of  the 
Socialist  party  as  a  proletarian  party,  to  train 
it  by  agitation,  education  and  organization  for 
the  victorious  completion  of  the  emancipation 
struggle,  to  wage  a  systematic  war  against  the 
class  state." 

The  result  of  this  class  war  is  more  fully  stated 
by  the  same  leader  thus :  "The  political  power 
which  the  social  democrary  aims  at  and  which 
it  will  own,  no  matter  what  its  enemies  may  do, 
has  not  for  its  object  the  establishment  of  a 
dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,  but  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  dictatorship  of  the  bourgeoisie,  just 
as  the  class  struggle  which  the  proletariat  carries 
on  is  only  a  counter  struggle  in  self  defense  to 
resist  the  class  struggle  of  the  bourgeoisie  against 
the  proletariat,  and  the  end  of  this  struggle  by 
the  victory  of  the  proletariat  will  be  the  abolition 
of  the  class  struggle  in  every  form." 

Kautsky,  who  may  be  considered  as  more  mod- 
erate than  Liebknecht  in  many  ways,  and  less 
endowed  with  the  reckless  fire  of  the  propa- 
gandist, still  accepts  the  same  position,  or  at  least 
did  so  in  1899,  for  in  his  "Class  Struggle" 
(translation  by  William  E.  Bohn,  Kerr  Com- 
pany, Chicago)  he  says: 

"This  social  transformation  means  the  libera- 
tion not  only  of  the  proletariat  but  of  the  whole 
human  race ;  only  the  working  class,  however, 
can  bring  it  about.  All  other  classes,  despite 
their  conflicting  interests,  maintain  their  exist- 


10  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

ence  on  the  basis  of  the  private  ownership  of  the 
means  of  production  and  therefore  have  a  com- 
mon motive  for  supporting  the  principles  of  the 
existing  social  order,"  and  the  Erfurt  Program, 
which  represented  very  largely  the  point  of  view 
of  Social  Democratic  Germany  twenty  years  ago 
and  is  still  perhaps  the  most  complete  document 
on  the  theoretical  and  political  side  of  the  move- 
ment, states :  "Forever  greater  grows  the  number 
of  proletarians,  more  gigantic  the  army  of  su- 
perfluous laborers,  and  sharper  the  opposition 
between  exploiters  and  exploited.  The  class 
struggle  between  the  bourgeoisie  and  the  pro- 
letariat is  the  common  work  of  all  industrial 
countries ;  it  divides  modern  society  into  two  op- 
posing camps  and  the  warfare  between  them 
constantly  increases  in  bitterness." 

It  is  true  that  there  has  always  been  a  tendency 
among  certain  Socialists  to  minimize  the  im- 
portance of  the  class  struggle,  and  to  place  the 
propaganda  upon  a  footing  which  would  be  ac- 
ceptable to  other  than  members  of  the  prole- 
tarian class.  It  cannot  be  said  however  with  any 
degree  of  truth  that  such  efforts  have  had  any 
real  effect  upon  the  movement  as  a  whole.  The 
proletarian  form  of  the  Socialist  movement  is 
that  which  flourishes  and  develops.  Marxism  is 
the  dominant  note  wherever  the  Socialist  move- 
ment has  firmly  planted  itself.  This  does  not 
mean  that  philosophic  Marxism,  in  the  narrow 
and  restricted  sense  in  which  the  term  is  em- 
ployed by  some  economic  deterministe,  is  com- 
prehended by  the  majority  or  even  by  a  numer- 
ous minority  of  the  members  of  the  Socialist 
party.    It  does  mean,  however,  that  the  idea  that 


SOCIALISM  AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  11 

the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  Socialist  movement 
rests  in  the  hands  of  the  working  class  tends  more 
and  more  to  prevail,  and  that  the  conception  of 
the  Socialist  movement  as  representing  the  prole- 
tariat and  implying  in  its  victory  the  successful 
revolution  of  the  proletariat  is  becoming  the 
dominant  conception.  In  fact,  the  harmony 
which  has  developed  of  late  between  the  working 
class  in  politics  and  the  Socialist  party  tends 
more  and  more  to  impress  this  not  only  upon 
the  mind  of  the  Socialist  agitator  and  the  work- 
ing class,  but  upon  the  intelligence  and  the  fears 
of  those  who  discover  that  what  they  had  re- 
garded as  a  dangerous  abstraction  is  fast  be- 
coming an  actual  and  threatening  reality. 

The  candidates  for  admission  to  the  Socialist 
Party  are  in  many  cases  compelled  to  sign  a 
pledge  that  they  believe  in  the  class  struggle,  so 
that  it  is  intended  that  there  shall  be  no  misun- 
derstanding with  regard  to  the  objects  and  aims 
of  the  Socialist  Party.  The  class  struggle  means 
the  unavoidable  conflict,  not  necessarily  physical,  - 
between  the  working  class  and  the  rest  of  society 
and  the  Socialist  Party  advertises  itself  therefore 
as  the  champion  of  the  working  class  in  this 
conflict.  The  term  "proletarian"  has  become  so 
widely  known,  owing  to  the  Socialist  agitation, 
that  it  has  been  actually  adopted  into  the  lan- 
guage in  spite  of  much  protest.  A  little  while 
ago  the  newspapers  were  indignantly  hostile  to 
its  employment,  claiming  that  the  very  expression 
was  in  itself  insulting  to  that  superior  person, 
the  American  workingman,  but  the  latter  has 
more  lately  developed  a  taste  for  the  word  as 
being   more    representative   and    complete    than 


12  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

any  other  and  as  a  result  there  is  little  doubt 
that  an  expression  which  was  until  very  recently 
regarded  as  a  term  of  opprobrium  will  in  all 
probability,  by  virtue  of  the  gains  of  the  Socialist 
and  the  victories  of  the  working  class,  actually 
become  a  distinctive  term,  regarded  as  an  honor 
by  those  who  bear  it  and  with  hatred  by  the 
others. 

It  is  certain  that  in  the  Socialist  Party  and 
movement  itself  the  word  it  not  looked  down 
upon.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  carried  with  some- 
thing very  much  akin  to  pride.  A  working  man 
who  is  a  Socialist  calls  himself  a  proletarian 
without  any  apology  therefor,  and  with  perfect 
naturalness,  as  though  he  were  to  call  himself  an 
American  or  a  German.  In  fact,  he  frequently 
uses  the  term  in  contradistinction  to  the  national 
term  and  will  often  reply  that  he  has  no  na- 
tionality, that  he  is  a  proletarian,  thus  placing  his 
class  distinctiveness  against  and  in  antagonism 
to  national  separativeness ;  in  fact,  advertising 
the  internationalism  of  his  class. 

The  criticism  is  made  of  even  members  of 
the  Socialist  Party  itself,  that  they  are  not  pro- 
letarians, and  even  loyal  and  devoted  members 
of  classes  other  than  the  proletarian  have  much 
trouble  in  overcoming  the  inherent  dislike  of  the 
proletarians,  who  frequently  state,  as  a  ground 
for  their  suspicions,  that  the  person  under  dis- 
cussion is  not  a  proletarian. 

If  the  word  is  used  by  the  members  of  the 
working  class  as  a  distinctive  appellation  it  is 
not  so  employed  by  those  who  have  no  claim 
to  it.  A  professional  man,  for  instance,  would 
have  no  hesitancy  in  proclaiming  himself  a  So- 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  13 

cialist,  but  he  neither  could  nor  would  call  him- 
self a  proletarian.  He  would  on  the  other  hand 
not  be  backward  in  saying  that  he  considered 
the  interests  of  the  proletarians  as  paramount, 
and  would  declare  that  the  Socialist  movement 
exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  proletarian. 

In  so  far  as  the  Socialist  political  movement 
stands  for  the  proletariat  it  is  in  accord  with 
the  fundamental  Socialist  doctrines ;  wherever 
it  steps  aside  from  that  service  to  the  proletariat 
it  is  recreant  to  them.  The  strength  of  the  So- 
cialist movement  depends  not  primarily  upon  the 
number  of  votes  which  it  polls,  nor  upon  the 
number  of  parliamentary  seats  which  it  occu- 
pies, nor  upon  the  number  of  municipalities 
which  it  controls  in  the  name  of  socialism,  but 
most  and  chiefly  upon  the  degree  with  which 
it  pursues  the  interests  of  the  proletarian  ex- 
clusively. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  inseparability 
of  socialism  and  the  proletariat.  The  Social  rev- 
olution is  admittedly  dependent  upon  the  self- 
conscious  growth  of  the  proletarian  class. 

This  could  not  indeed  have  been  put  more 
strongly  than  by  Liebknecht,  who,  in  his  letter 
to  the  Marxists  at  Epernay,  August  10th,  1899, 
declares:  "On  the  ground  of  the  class  struggle 
we  are  invincible;  if  we  leave  it  we  are  lost,  be- 
cause we  are  no  longer  Socialists.  The  strength 
and  power  of  socialism  rest  in  the  fact  that  we 
are  leading  a  class  struggle."  As  far  as  the 
Marxist  wing  of  the  Socialist  movement  is  con- 
cerned there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  dependence 
upon  the  class  struggle  concept.  The  social  revo- 
lution rests  therefore  in  the  hands  of  the  pro- 
letariat. 


14  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 


THE  PROLETARIAT 

The  proletariat  is  the  product  of  modern  capi- 
taHsm.  It  is  so  regarded  by  the  Sociahsts,  and 
in  any  discussion  involving  the  Socialist  con- 
ception of  the  proletariat  it  is  necessary  to  bear 
this  in  mind.  There  was  no  proletarian  class  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  "Proletarian"  signifies  a  class 
distinct  from  its  predecessors  in  modern  history. 
It  does  not  mean  poor,  or  degraded,  or  per- 
taining to  the  slums  or  anything  else  that  is  vile 
and  low,  as  the  use  of  the  word  so  often  implies. 

The  pipletarian  is  the  product  of  the  modern 
world.  He  is  brought  into  being  by  the  very 
conditions  against  which  he  must  contend.  Thus 
the  Communist  Manifesto  declared:  "But  not 
only  has  the  bourgeoisie  forged  the  weapons  that 
bring  death  to  itself ;  it  has  also  called  into  exist- 
ence the  men  who  are  to  wield  those  weapons — 
the  modern  working  class — the  proletarians." 
Hence  the  term  proletarian  and  modern  working 
class  are  held  to  be  synonymous. 

What  was  the  reason  then  for  inventing  a  new 
term?  It  appears  in  the  next  paragraph  of  the 
Manifesto.  "In  proportion  as  the  bourgeoisie, 
i.  e.,  capital,  is  developed,  in  the  same  proportion 
is  the  proletariat,  the  modern  working  class,  de- 
veloped, a  class  of  laborers,  who  live  only  as 
long  as  they  find  work,  and  who  find  work  only 
so  long  as  their  labor  increases  capital.  These 
laborers  who  must  sell  themselves  piecemeal  are 
a  commodity,  like  every  other  article  of  com- 
merce, and  are  consequently  exposed  to  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  competition  to  all  the  fluctuations 
of  the  market." 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  15 

The  proletarian  therefore  has  no  property,  he 
has  no  place  in  society  as  at  present  constituted 
except  to  sink  himself  in  his  work  and  to  pass 
on  his  vitality  to  his  descendants,  who  will  per- 
form the  same  functions  and  in  their  turn  dis- 
appear. 

To  find  a  name  which  would  fit  such  a  class 
one  had  to  go  to  the  history  of  Rome.  The 
break-up  of  the  small  farms,  the  extinction  of 
the  peasant  proprietorship,  and  the  merging  of 
vast  numbers  of  formerly  independent  Romans 
in  the  City,  had  produced  a  class  denominated 
proletarii,  or  "breeders,"  who  were  of  no  ac- 
count except  to  produce  descendants.  This  term 
was  applied  to  the  modern  working  class  as  we 
have  seen  and  hence  arose  the  expression:  "pro- 
letarian," a  term  much  hated  but  rapidly  carrying 
with  it  the  implications  of  power  which  recent 
achievements  in  industry  and  politics  under  its 
name  necessarily  convey. 

To  have  contemplated  the  working  class,  at 
the  time  of  the  writing  of  the  Communist  Mani- 
festo, as  the  means  of  its  own  liberation  was  one 
of  the  most  daring  conceptions.  Never  had  a 
large  part  of  humanity  been  lower  than  in  the 
commercial  and  industrial  communities  at  that 
time.  Perhaps  the  statement  of  the  Manifesto, 
"at  this  stage  the  laborers  still  form  an  inco- 
herent mass  scattered  over  the  whole  country  and 
broken  up  by  their  mutual  competition,"  ex- 
presses their  tondition  more  completely  than 
many  pages  of  attempted  description.  Engels' 
famous  "Condition  of  the  Working  Class  in  Eng- 
land" shows  the  depths  to  which  the  working  class 
had  fallen  and  the  misery  which  accompanied 


16  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

the  beginnings  of  the  modern  system.  The  blue 
books  of  the  day  and  the  ParHamentary  debates 
all  bear  witness  that  the  estimate  of  the  Mani- 
festo was  not  exaggerated  and  that  the  condition 
of  the  working  masses  was  deplorable.  How  out 
of  this  mass  of  misery  was  the  redemption  to 
come?  Whence  was  the  revolutionary  impulse 
to  proceed? 

Evidently  not  from  the  mass  itself,  as  it  was 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  few 
years  before  parts  of  that  mass  had  in  a  delirium 
of  suffering  destroyed  factories  and  wrecked  ma- 
chinery as  a  protest  against  their  tortures.  They 
had  of  course  been  whipped  back  to  the  kennels 
again.  The  constabulary  and  the  yeomanry 
killed  and  wounded,  the  judge  sat  and  sentenced, 
and  the  sleek  and  complacent  wrote  novels  and 
essays  to  show  the  inherent  foolishness  of  ma- 
chine smashing.  Only  old  Carlyle  growled  cyni- 
cal remonstrance  at  the  powers  that  were,  and 
the  Christian  Socialists  tried  to  protest  in  terms 
of  the  Gospel. 

In  spite  of  all,  however,  the  worker  became 
more  and  more  dependent  upon  the  machine,  and 
continually  more  subordinated  to  the  movements 
of  the  machine.  And  the  machine,  though  his 
tyrant,  came  in  the  long  run  to  be  his  deliverer. 
Gathered  about  the  machine  he  learned  organi- 
zation ;  trained  and  drilled  in  subordination  to  the 
movements  of  the  machine  he  learned  discipline 
for  his  own  ends,  so  that  the  proletarian  entering 
the  factory  system,  "an  incoherent  mass,"  passes 
out  of  it,  still  a  proletariat,  it  is  true,  but  a  pro- 
letariat who  has  learnt  the  art  of  organization 
and  of  political  expression. 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  17 

Gradually  from  the  mass  of  the  proletarians, 
groups  begin  to  emerge  who  engage  in  contest 
with  the  employers.  These  groups  naturally 
come  into  collision  with  the  employing  class 
at  the  point  of  contact,  that  is,  in  the  shop.  At 
first  there  is  no  question  of  anything  beyond  the 
price  of  labor.  The  bargain  is  made  in  terms  of 
the  bourgeois  system  itself,  and  there  is  an  effort, 
just  as  between  rival  merchants,  to  higgle  the 
market  and  arrive  at  a  price  for  labor.  The  effort 
of  the  labor  oganization  is  directed  towards  main- 
taining the  rate  of  wages,  which  is  seldom  more 
than  is  required  for  necessities  in  accordance 
with  a  standard  which  tends  to  vary  somewhat 
in  different  localities. 

The  fact  is  that  the  skilled  laborers  were  first 
to  form  unions  and  combinations  for  the  pur- 
pose of  improving  their  economic  conditions,  as 
it  was  more  difficult  to  fill  their  places.  The  con- 
sequence of  this  was  the  success  of  skilled  labor 
in  effecting  an  organization  to  stand  up  against 
reductions  and  in  some  instances  to  gain  actual 
concessions  from  the  employing  class.  The  fol- 
lowing words  of  the  Erfurt  Program  are  as  true 
today  as  when  they  were  written: 

"Forever  greater  grows  the  number  of  proletarians, 
more  gigantic  the  army  of  superfluous  laborers,  and 
sharper  the  opposition  between  exploiters  and  exploited. 
The  class  struggle  between  the  bourgeoisie  and  the 
proletariat  is  the  common  mark  of  all  industrial  coun- 
tries, it  divides  modern  society  into  two  opposing 
camps  and  the  warfare  between  them  constantly  in- 
creases in  bitterness." 

The  increasing  difficulty  of  escape  from  the 
proletarian  class  is  an  important  consideration, 
for  the  conflict  might  be  avoided  by  the  pro- 
letarian ceasiijg  to  be  proletarian  and  climbing: 


18  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

into  some  class  where  he  might  have  more  se- 
curity than  in  the  proletarian  class. 

In  fact  there  is  no  question  that  the  possibility 
presented  to  the  active  and  clever  proletarian  in 
the  United  States  to  escape  from  his  own  class 
into  a  more  secure  postition  has  had  very  con- 
siderable influence  in  causing  the  comparative 
backwardness  of  the  working  class  to  assert  it- 
self in  the  United  States. 

Such  a  condition,  however,  could  not  in  the 
very  nature  of  things  be  permanent.  Indeed, 
it  has  practically  come  to  an  end  with  much 
greater  rapidity  than  could  have  been  reasonably 
anticipated.  The  practical  absorption  of  the 
public  lands,  largely  helped  by  immense  confis- 
catory grants  which  the  greater  capitalism  in  the 
shape  of  the  transportation  companies  demanded 
as  an  essential  prerequisite  to  their  engaging  in 
business ;  the  extension  of  the  greater  capitalism 
into  practically  every  remunerative  form  of  pro- 
ductive industry,  the  extension  along  with  it  of 
organization  in  the  distributive  system  have  all 
combined  to  make  farming  and  small  business, 
the  two  most  obvious  ways  by  which  the  pro- 
letarian might  hope  to  escape  from  his  prole- 
tarianism,  impossible.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  the  avenues  of  personal  development  in 
the  United  States  are  fast  becoming  closed  and 
that  henceforward  the  American  working  man 
will  have  to  rely  more  upon  his  efforts  as  a 
member  of  his  class  than  upon  his  own  personal 
efforts  for  his  individual  success.  Henceforth 
his  lot  in  life  becomes  to  an  ever  increasing  de- 
gree dependent  upon  the  conditions  of  others 
like  himself.    He  cannot  rise  out  of  the  working 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  19 

class.  He  is  inevitably  and  irremediably  con- 
fined to  the  class  to  which  he  belongs  and  his 
economic  position  becomes  more  and  more  de- 
termined by  the  ecofiomic  position  of  the  class. 
Hence  his  whole  salvation  depends  upon  class 
action. 

Where  it  becomes  clear  to  the  average  man 
that  his  chance  of  a  decent  livelihood  and  his 
sole  opportunity  for  the  advancement  of  his 
family  is  dependent  upon  the  advancement  of 
his  class,  it  is  clear  that  the  class  struggle,  upon 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  socialism  lays  such  em- 
phasis, is  not  far  away,  even  if  it  is  not  actually 
at  the  doors. 

The  realization  of  this  fact  of  the  interdepend- 
ence of  the  members  of  the  class  one  upon  an- 
other, in  other  words  the  substitution  of  a  col- 
lective for  an  individual  ethic,  is,  generally  speak- 
ing, a  matter  of  considerable  time,  but  events 
have  moved  so  rapidly  in  the  United  States  that 
a  few  years  have  sufficed  to  cause  the  formation 
of  a  party  actually  pledged  to  the  class  struggle 
and  to  develop  that  party  up  to  the  point  where 
it  becomes  a  very  distinct  factor  in  public  af- 
fairs. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  formation  of 
such  a  party  in  the  United  States  and  the  growth 
of  the  sentiments  which  the  development  and 
growth  of  such  a  party  imply  mean  much  more 
than  the  development  of  any  of  the  Social  Dem- 
ocratic parties  heretofore  known  in  Europe.  This 
is  so,  because  the  United  States  starts  from  a 
place  much  further  up  the  line  of  political  prog- 
ress. Even  in  the  strongest  of  the  European  So- 
cialist parties  there  is  a  strong  mixture  of  bour- 


20  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

geois  radicalism  because  the  complete  liberation 
from  feudalism  has  not  been  entirely  accom- 
plished. Here,  the  establishment  of  a  strong  So- 
cialist movement  based  upon  a  class  struggle 
theory  necessarily  implies  an  attack  upon  the 
economic  foundations  of  the  modern  state,  which 
is  certain  to  be  vehemently  resisted  by  the  pos- 
sessing classes.  Hence  follows  a  class  war  or 
something  closely  approximating  it,  unless  a 
recognition  of  the  actual  conditions  brings  about 
such  a  reasonable  state  of  mind  that  steady 
progress  in  the  Socialist  direction  is  peacefully 
pursued. 

So  far  in  Europe  the  governing  classes  have 
been  wise  enough  to  avoid  the  revolutionary 
issue  by  the  passing  of  remedial  legislation  and 
the  gradual  yielding  to  the  necessity  of  provision 
for  the  least  able  and  the  common  laborer,  the 
woman  worker  and  the  child.  The  European 
governments  have  already  doomed  supply  and  de- 
mand in  labor  and  laissez-faire  to  the  scrap  heap. 
Only  in  the  United  States  do  the  ghosts  of  dead 
bourgeois  economists  still  walk  and  the  bogies 
of  fifty  years  ago  are  paraded  in  the  face  of  the 
progressive  workman  of  today.  It  is  a  condition 
ominous  in  the  extreme  and  one  which  wise 
statesmanship  would  have  done  everything  pos- 
sible to  avoid. 

In  no  department  has  the  happy-go-lucky  char- 
acter of  American  statemanship  made  itself  so 
conspicuous  as  in  that  of  social  questions.  This 
has  arisen  partly  from  the  fact  that  the  new 
conditions  have  developed  so  rapidly  that  the 
need  of  governmental  interference  for  the  benefit 
of  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  had  not  time 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  21 

to  penetrate  the  average  brain ;  besides,  the  great 
mass  of  common  labor  having  been  largely  alien, 
its  needs  have  not  so  far  impressed  themselves 
with  any  strength  upon  the  mind  of  the  politi- 
cian, particularly  as  such  a  large  percentage  does 
not  vote. 

Warning  voices  to  American  statesmen  have 
been  raised  from  across  the  Atlantic  many  times 
in  recent  years.  None,  however,  have  been 
stronger  or  more  able  than  the  statement  of 
Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb  in  their  introduction 
to  "Problems  of  Modern  Industry,"  second  edi- 
tion, 1902. 

Speaking  of  the  effect  of  the  trust  they  say : 

The  competent,  "pushful,"  native-born  American 
will  get  on  all  right  under  this  capitalist  autocracy. 
He  will,  indeed,  have  to  give  up  the  chance  of  becom- 
ing his  own  master,  and  practically,  that  of  "making 
a  pile."  But  what  will  be  virtually  the  civil  service 
of  industry,  the  great  salaried  hierarchy  of  the  Trusts, 
will  offer  a  safer  and,  on  the  average,  a  better  paid 
career  for  industrial  talent  than  the  old  chances  of 
the  market.  Every  man  of  skill  and  energy,  compe- 
tence and  "go"  will  be  wanted  in  the  gigantic  organiza- 
tion of  the  new  industry.     Brains  will  be  at  a  premium. 

From  the  skilled  mechanic  right  up  to  the  highest 
engineering  genius,  from  the  competent  foreman  up 
to  the  highest  railway  organizer,  from  the  merely  prac- 
tised chemist  up  to  the  heaven-born  inventor  or  de- 
signer, all  will  find,  not  merely  employment,  but  scope 
for  their  whole  talent;  not  merely  remuneration  but 
salaries  such  as  the  world  has  seldom  seen.  And  in 
serving  their  employers  they  will  be  at  least  as  directly 
serving  the  community  as  they  are  at  present. 

It  is  when  we  come  to  the  great  mass  of  wage- 
earners — the  ten  or  fifteen  millions  of  day  laborers  and 
ordinary  artisans— that  we  see  the  really  grave  conse- 
quences of  industrial  autocracy.  These  men,  with  their 
wives    and    families,    must    necessarily    constitute    the 


22  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

great  bulk  oi  the  population,  the  "common  lump  of 
men."  It  is  in  their  lives  that  the  civilization  of  a 
nation  consists,  and  it  is  by  their  condition  that  it  wrill 
be  judged.  And,  though  the  great  ones  never  believe 
it,  it  is  upon  the  status,  the  culture,  the  upward  prog- 
ress of  these  ordinary  men  that  the  prosperity  of  the 
nation,  and  even  the  profits  of  the  capitalists,  ultimately 
depend.  What  is  likely  to  be  the  Standard  of  Life  of 
the  ordinary  laborer  or  artisan  under  the  great  indus- 
trial corporations  of  the  United  States? 

The  authors  go  on  to  state  that  without  a 
remedial  policy  approaching  what  they  term  a 
"national  minimum,"  meaning  a  scale  of  wages, 
leisure,  education,  etc.,  which  must  be  compul- 
sory and  enforced  by  the  power  of  the  State, 
"to  what  awful  depths  of  misery  and  demorali- 
zation, brutality  and  degradation,  humanity  can, 
under  'perfect  freedotu'  descend,  we  are  scarce- 
ly yet  in  a  position  to  say.  Is  this  to  be  the  con- 
tribution to  economics  in  the  twentieth  century 
of  the  country  of  Jefiferson  and  Washington?" 

The  reader  ma)-  judge  as  well  as  the  writer  of 
the  chances  of  remedial  legislation  of  the  de- 
scription here  suggested  at  the  hand  of  the  or- 
dinary American  politician.  Such  a  change  of 
heart  is  impossible  to  contemplate.  Nine  years 
have  passed  since  the  above  words  were  written, 
and  actual  events  make  them  almost  prophetic. 
But  in  the  meantime  little  or  nothing  has  been 
done  to  change  the  current  of  events  and  to 
mitigate  the  results  of  the  operation  of  the  sys- 
tem now  in  full  control. 

The  alternative  to  remedial  action  is  thus 
stated : 

As   yet,   the    American    citizen    still   believes    himself 
to  be  free,  and  sees  not  the  industrial  subjection  into 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  23 

which  he  is  rapidly  passing.  But,  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  he  will  witness  unmoved  the  successive 
failures  of  trade  unions  and  strikes,  the  general  re- 
ductions in  wages  which  will  mark  the  first  spell  of 
bad  trade,  the  manifold  dismissals  and  "shuttings 
down,"  the  progressive  degradation  of  his  class.  He 
will  take  up  every  wild  dream  and  every' mad  panacea. 
He  will  be  tricked  and  outvoted  again  and  again ;  but, 
if  so,  the  result  will  be  a  "class  war"  more  terrible 
than  any  the  world  has  seen,  and  one  in  which, 
though  the  ultimate  victory  will  be  with  the  common 
people,  American  civilization  may  go  back  several  gen- 
erations. 

And  thus  in  the  last  analysis  we  are  brought 
again  to  the  proletariat  and  the  class  war. 

In  another  republic,  France,  one  of  by  no 
means  the  most  advanced  Socialists  arrives  at  the 
same  conclusion  in  the  following  words : 

Not  only  does  the  proletariat  too  often  suffer  vio- 
lence directly  from  the  economic  power  of  capitalists, 
but,  if  I  may  say  so,  its  own  mind  is  distorted  by 
the  habit  of  the  social  regime  under  which  it  lives. 
The  worst  tyranny  exerted  by  a  social  regime  or  form 
is,  that  in  absorbing  all  the  strength  of  the  workers 
and  pouring  them  into  the  mould  of  contemporary 
society,  it  renders  a  very  great  number  of  workers 
whom  it  overwhelms  incapable  even  of  conceiving  an- 
other possible  way  of  applying  their  strength.  Thus, 
contemporary  society  weighs  doublj'^  on  the  workers 
in  the  exercise  of  this  political  sovereignty ;  which  is 
violated,  firstly,  by  the  employers,  and,  secondly,  by  the 
silent  and  chronic  capitalistic  prejudice,  stamped  by 
habit  on  the  very  class  which  suffers  from  its  sway. 
It  is  to  react  against  these  fatal  effects — this  pres- 
sure, this  distortion — exerted  by  economic  inequality 
even  on  the  political  action  of  the  wage-workers,  that 
we  must  affirm,  always  within  the  democracj',  the  an- 
tagonism of  classes  and  the  need  of  the  proletarian 
class  to  organize,  and  always  affirm  the  collectivist 
or  communist  ideal  in  the  definite,  precise,  vigorous 
form  needed  to  dissipate  the  capitalistic  prejudice 
inoculated  into  the  proletarian  class  itself. 


24  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

(Speech  of  Taures  at  Bordeaux  Congress, 
April  12-14,  1903,  from  "Modern  Socialism" 
edited  by  E.  K.  Ensor.) 

Hence  we  stand  practically  today  where  we  did 
sixty  years  ago.  The  proletarian  class  is  re- 
garded as  the  savior  of  society.  Out  of  it  still 
must  come  the  force  to  overturn  the  existing 
state  and  to  establish  conditions  more  in  harmony 
with  the  aspirations  of  the  progressive. 

In  the  last  analysis  even  the  moderate  and  the 
timorous  middle  classes  fall  back  upon  the  pro- 
letariat as  a  last  resort.  As  we  have  seen  the 
Webbs,  as  a  punishment  for  the  neglect  of  the 
National  Minimum,  threaten  us  with  a  class  war, 
and  Jaures  who  has  always  looked  approvingly 
to  middle  class  action  is  still  driven  finally  to 
rely  upon  that  proletariat  with  whose  movements 
and  conscious  tendencies  he  is  so  often  in  dis- 
agreement. 

Even  the  victory  of  the  moderate  Fabian  policy 
would  make  no  difference  in  the  long  run  for 
the  process  of  political  and  industrial  develop- 
ment would  not  be  complete  without  a  marshal- 
ing of  the  proletarian  forces.  The  battle  must 
still  be  fought  out  between  the  capitalist  and 
the  proletarian.  That  statement  which  has  seemed 
so  crude  to  the  student  and  against  which  the 
learned  and  the  humane  in  the  reformers'  ranks 
have  protested,  and  the  facts  of  which  they  have 
endeavored  to  ignore,  still  remains,  as  the  most 
categorical  and  the  most  fundamentally  true  of 
all  the  utterances  put  forth  by  the  Socialist 
movement.  The  movement  is  in  its  essence  revo- 
lutionary, it  cannot  contemplate  anything  short 
of  the  transformation  of  modern  society  in  ac- 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  25 

tuality  as  well  as  in  ethical  concept  and  economic 
doctrine. 

When  the  proletariat  is  regarded,  however,  as 
the  means  by  which  such  results  should  be  ac- 
complished, the  reputable  and  the  wise  refuse  to 
admit  the  possibility  of  such  achievements  at 
the  hands  of  such  a  class. 

The  reason  for  such  hesitancy  on  the  part  of 
the  middle  class  reformer  is  easy  to  understand 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  vastness  of  this 
force,  its  apparent  unmanageability,  its  lack  of 
unity,  the  hopeless  monotony  of  its  life  and  more 
than  all  the  apparently  sullen  and  unintelligent 
fashion  in  which  it  regards  events  and  life. 

There  is  the  slum  proletariat  into  which  drop 
the  accumulated  failures  from  the  other  classes 
and  which  festers  and  moulders  in  the  great 
cities.  It  is  the  despair  of  philanthropists  and 
a  constant  commentary  upon  the  wastefulness 
and  brutality  of  modern  life.  As  a  revolutionary 
factor  it  can  be  ignored.  The  fancy  pictures 
which  frightened  clergymen  and  delirious  news- 
papers draw  of  the  slums  turning  out  tens  of 
thousands  to  sack  and  pillage  are  merely  fancy. 
The  slums  are  not  revolutionary.  Long  ago,  at 
,  the  very  beginning,  the  founders  of  the  Socialist 
movement  disposed  of  the  slum  proletariat  as 
an  effective  factor  in  revolt.  The  Communist 
Manifesto  says:  "The  dangerous  class,  the  so- 
cial scum,  that  passively  rotting  mass  thrown 
off  by  the  lowest  layers  of  old  society,  may  here 
and  there  be  swept  into  the  movement  by  a  pro- 
letarian revolution;  its  conditions  of  life,  how- 
ever, prepare  it  far  more  for  the  part  of  a  bribed 
tool  of  reactionary  intrigue." 


26  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

How  true  this  statement  is  may  be  observed 
by  all  who  have  taken  part  in  elections. 

The  polling  booths  on  the  edge  of  the  red  light 
district  are  the  center  of  fraudulent  voting. 
Here  are  the  abodes  of  prostitutes  and  thieves, 
of  vagrants  and  drunkards,  from  which,  how- 
ever, the  police  derive  their  hush-money,  and  on 
which  batten  the  minor  city  officials  and  the  sub- 
merged portion  of  the  municipal  governments.  It 
is  here  that  the  respectable  candidate  gathers 
most  of  the  votes  which  constitute  his  majority. 
Endorsed  by  the  church,  and  supported  by  the 
mass  of  respectable  citizens  living  on  the  hillsides, 
the  hordes  of  crime  and  the  slum  proletariat  flock 
to  his  standard  and  the  two  extremes  of  modern 
city  life  unite  in  a  common  effort  to  perpetuate 
the  evils  of  the  day.  There  is  no  new  thing  in 
all  this.  It  has  always  happened.  It  is  part  of 
the  machinery  of  government  today  as  it  was 
sixty  years  ago,  and  the  truth  of  the  Communist 
Manifesto  statement  may  be  fully  grasped  from 
the  fact  that  in  many  cities  of  the  United  States 
today  the  power  is  held  by  the  possessing  class 
largely,  if  not  altogether  in  some  districts,  by  and 
through  the  vote  of  the  slum  proletariat.  A  po- 
litical contest  in  which  the  Socialists  have  taken 
a  sufficiently  prominent  part  to  cause  them  to 
closely  overhaul  the  voting  registers  and  to  pro- 
tect themselves  against  fraud  at  the  polls  always 
reveals  a  startlingly  corrupt  condition.  In  every 
State  the  register  was  discovered  to  be  padded 
and  in  one  city,  of  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  in  which  the  Socialists  recently  polled 
nearly  ten  thousand  votes,  it  was  discovered  that 
almost  one  third  of  the  register  was  fraudulent. 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  27 

The  same  conditions  prevail,  there  is  little  reason 
to  doubt,  over  the  whole  country,  and  naturally 
to  a  greater  degree  in  the  slum  districts  than  else- 
where, as  these  offer  the  greatest  opportunity  for 
fraud,  owing  to  the  transient  character  of  the 
population  and  the  number  of  cheap  lodging 
houses  in  which  those  districts  abound. 

We  may  therefore  exclude  the  slum  proletariat 
from  any  consideration  of  the  revolutionary 
forces  which  are  to  be  looked  for  in  the  pro- 
letariat as  a  whole. 

If,  however,  we  cut  down  the  proletariat  as  a 
revolutionary  factor  by  the  elimination  of  the 
lower  element,  we  must  also  make  a  further  sub- 
traction of  much  of  what  has  been  regarded  as 
the  higher  and  better  paid  portion  of  the  pro- 
letariat. 

In  considering  this  portion  of  the  proletariat, 
namely  the  highly  paid,  well-skilled  artisan, 
Kautsky,  in  spite  of  his  usual  clearness,  seems 
to  be  under  a  cloud  as  to  the  relation  of  this 
portion  of  the  proletarian  class  to  the  social  revo- 
lution. Thus  in  the  Class  Struggle  he  says :  "It 
was  naturally  the  skilled  workers  who  began  the 
struggle  for  better  conditions.  The  fact  that  it 
was  difficult  to  find  substitutes  for  them  in  case 
of  a  strike  gave  them  an  important  advantage. 
Their  position  was  not  unlike  that  of  the  medi- 
eval apprentices  and  in  many  respects  their  un- 
ions were  natural  descendants  of  the  gilds."  But 
that  Kautsky  at  this  stage  does  not  recognize  in 
these  unions,  (English  and  American  pure  and 
simple  unions)  any  real  tendency  towards  the  so- 
cial revolution  is  very  clear  from  what  he  says 
immediately  after : 


28  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

But,  if  modern  skilled  laborers  inherited  certain 
advantages  from  their  predecessors,  they  also  took 
over  from  them  one  tendency  which  has  done  great 
harm  to  the  modern  labor  movement.  This  is  the  ten- 
dency to  separate  the  various  crafts.  Naturally,  those 
in  the  best  position  to  fight  have  won  for  themselves 
superior  advantages  and  have  come  to  look  upon  them- 
selves as  an  aristocracy  of  labor.  Looking  only  at 
their  own  interest,  they  have  been  content  to  rise  at 
the  expense  of  their  less  fortunate  comrades. 

Far-sighted  politicians  and  industrial  leaders  have 
not  been  slow  to  take  advantage  of  this  condition. 
Today  the  worst  enemies  of  the  working  class  are 
not  the  stupid,  reactionary  statesmen  who  hope  to  keep 
down  the  labor  movement  through  openly  repressive 
measures.  Its  worst  enemies  are  the  pretended  friends 
who  encourage  craft  unions,  and  thus  attempt  to  cut  off 
the  skilled  trades  from  the  rest  of  their  class.  They 
are  trying  to  turn  the  most  efficient  division  of  the 
proletarian  army  against  the  great  mass,  against  those 
whose  position  as  unskilled  workers  makes  them  least 
capable  of  defense. 

In  other  words  the  highly  skilled  trades  sepa- 
rate themselves  from  the  mass  of  the  proletariat 
and  obtain  for  themselves  a  position  apart  and 
superior  to  the  rest  of  the  proletariat.  This  is 
precisely  the  history  of  the  pure  and  simple, 
highly  skilled  unions  in  America,  Britain  and  the 
British  colonies.  They  have  segregated  them- 
selves from  the  rest  of  the  mass  of  their  fellow 
workers  and  have  made  independent  trade  con- 
tracts with  their  employer  many  times  to  the 
detriment  of  members  of  the  proletariat  less 
fortunately  placed  than  themselves. 

This  estimate  agrees  with  that  of  the  Webbs, 
as  appears  from  the  following  quotation  from 
the  Introduction  to  Problems  of  Modern  In- 
dustry, already  several  times  quoted: 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  29 

The  workers  may  "kick;"  there  may  be  labor  unions 
and  strikes;  but,  against  such  industrial  omnipotence 
the  weapons  of  the  wage-earners  are  as  arrows  against 
ironclads.  This  will  be  all  the  more  certainly  the  case, 
because  it  will  suit  the  leviathan,  as  a  matter  of  con- 
venience, to  come  to  terms  with  the  small  minority 
of  skilled  and  well-paid  workmen,  who  might  have 
stiffened  the  rest.  This  is  the  condition  of  monopolist 
autocracy  into  which  every  great  industry  in  the  United 
States  seems  fated  to  pass,  and  to  pass  with  great  rap- 
idity. A  few  thousands  of  millionaire  capitalist  "kings," 
uniting  the  means  of  a  few  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
passive  stockholders,  and  served  by,  perhaps,  an  equal 
number  of  well  salaried  managers,  foremen,  inventors, 
designers,  chemists,  engineers,  and  skilled  mechanics, 
will  absolutely  control  an  army  of  ten  or  fifteen  mil- 
lions of  practically  property-less  wage  laborers,  largely 
Slavonic,   Latin,   or  Negro  in  race. 

The  situation  here  described  is  at  least  as  far 
as  the  English  speaking  countries  are  con- 
cerned practically  universal.  The  higher  class 
mechanics,  and  by  that  we  mean  those  whose 
possession  of  special  skill  allows  them  to  restrict 
the  market,  have  taken  no  part  in  any  general 
working  class  movement.  On  the  contrary,  when 
the  lower  paid  of  the  working  class  have  en- 
deavored to  improve  their  condition,  the  higher 
paid  have  not  hesitated  to  stand  by  the  employers 
and  by  means  of  contracts  with  the  employers,  to 
rob  the  poorer  employes  of  the  chance  of  im- 
proving their  condition. 

In  politics  we  find  practically  the  same  condi- 
tion of  things.  The  labor  unions,  embracing  the 
more  highly  skilled  and  organized  branches  of 
labor,  support,  as  a  rule,  the  greater  capitalism 
in  some  form  or  other.  Usually  they  vote  di- 
rectly for  the  representatives  of  the  great  eco- 
nomic interests.   Sometimes,  however,  they  form 


30  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

a  labor  party  which,  while  apparently  proletarian, 
or,  at  least,  working  class  in  form,  is,  in  reality 
an  adherent  of  the  greater  capitalism  in  sub- 
stance. Instances  of  this  may  be  seen  in  San 
Francisco,  and  quite  noticeably  in  the  antipodean 
(Australasian  and  South  African)  labor  par- 
ties. On  the  South  African  Rand  the  greater 
capitalism  is  unpopular  and  the  people  who  know 
confidently  predict  that  it  may  have  to  achieve 
its  purposes  by  the  aid,  at  least,  of  a  labor  party. 
As  the  matter  stands  at  present  there  does  not 
appear  to  be  any  real  revolutionary  impulse  in 
those  trade  organizations  which  are  most  familiar 
to  us  and  which  are  considered  as  representa- 
tive of  labor  in  its  best  developed  and  most  ad- 
vanced state.  In  fact,  the  trade  unionists  would 
vehemently  and  passionately  deny  any  desire  or 
intention  of  destroying  the  present  system  and 
producing  a  condition  approximating  the  Social- 
ist concept.  Their  class  feeling  is  to  say  the 
least  exceedingly  hazy  and  manifests  itself  only 
in  times  of  stress  and  then  temporarily  and 
probably  intentionally.  At  least,  only  on  oc- 
casions in  which  organized  labor  is  threatened, 
is  the  cry  that  the  working  class  must  stand 
together  raised.  At  all  other  times  the  position 
of  the  proletariat,  which  does  not  come  under 
the  description  of  organized  labor,  is  ignored  and 
flouted  by  better  paid  and  well  organized  labor. 
As  we  shall  see,  this  phenomenon  is  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  merely  transitory  and  must  pass 
away  with  the  greater  development  of  the  ma- 
chine process  and  the  more  complete  organiza- 
tion of  industry.  In  the  meantime,  however,  it 
manifestly   exists,   all   theories   to  the   contrary 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  31 

notwithstanding,  and  effectually,  at  least  for  the 
present,  places  a  bar  in  the  path  of  Socialist  de- 
velopment by  the  proletariat.     Kautsky  says : 

But,  sooner  or  later,  the  aristocratic  tendency  o£ 
even  the  most  skilled  class  of  laborers  will  be  broken. 
As  mechanical  production  advances,  one  craft  after 
another  is  tumbled  into  the  abyss  of  common  labor. 
This  fact  is  constantly  teaching  even  the  most  effec- 
tively organized  divisions,  that  in  the  long  run  their 
position  is  dependent  upon  the  strength  of  the  work- 
ing-class as  a  whole.  They  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  a  mistaken  policy  to  attempt  to  rise  on  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  are  sinking  in  a  quicksand. 
They  come  to  see  that  the  struggles  of  other  divisions 
of  the  proletariat  are  by  no  means  foreign  to  them. 

At  the  same  time,  one  division  of  the  unskilled 
after  another  rises  out  of  its  stupid  lethargy  or  mere 
purposeless  discontent.  This  is,  in  part,  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  the  successes  achieved  by  the  skilled  la- 
borers. The  direct  results  of  the  activities  of  the  un- 
skilled proletarians  may  seem  unimportant;  nevertheless, 
it  is  these  activities  that  bring  about  the  moral  regen- 
eration of  this  division  of  the  working  class. 

Thus,  there  has  gradually  formed  from  skilled  and 
unskilled  workers  a  body  of  proletarians  who  are  in 
the  movement  of  labor,  or  the  labor  movement.  It  is 
the  part  of  the  proletariat  which  is  fighting  for  the 
interests  of  the  whole  class,  its  church  militant,  as  it 
were.  This  division  grows  at  the  expense  both  of 
the  "aristocrats  of  labor"  and  of  the  common  mob 
which  still  vegetates,  helpless  and  hopeless.  We  have 
already  seen  that  the  laboring  proletariat  is  constantly 
increasing;  we  know,  further,  that  it  tends  more  and 
more  to  set  the  pace  in  thought  and  feeling  for  the 
other  working  classes.  We  now  see  that  in  this  grow- 
ing mass  of  workers  the  militant  division  increases 
not  only  absolutely  but  relatively.  No_  matter  how 
fast  the  proletariat  may  grow,  this  militant  division 
of  it  grows  still   faster. 

But  it  is  precisely  this  militant  proletariat  which 
is  the  most  fruitful  recruiting  ground  for  Socialism. 
The  SociaUst  movement  is  nothing  more  than  the  part 


32  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

of  this  militant  proletariat  which  has  become  conscious 
of  its  goal.  In  fact,  these  two,  socialism  and  the  mil- 
itant proletariat,  tend  constantly  to  become  identical. 
In  Germany  and  Austria  their  identity  is  already  an 
accomplished  fact. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  truth  of  this 
statement,  speaking  in  terms  of  infinity.  If  noth- 
ing else  happens,  of  course,  the  process  itself 
will  dispose  of  the  exclusiveness  of  the  trades 
unions.  In  the  meantime,  however,  the  trades 
unions  are  an  eflfective  bar  to  progress  in  the  in- 
dustrial field  and  whenever  they  go  into  politics 
in  their  own  account  they  leave  the  traces  of 
their  small  trader  footprints.  It  would  appear 
that  no  successful  move  by  the  proletariat,  and 
consequently  by  the  Socialists,  can  be  made  as 
long  as  the  present  form  of  trade  union  organi- 
zation exists.  It  must  go  out  of  existence  or  be- 
come so  transformed  as  to  be  unrecognizable. 
To  this  conclusion  the  Socialists  have  been  slowly 
but  inevitably  driven  by  their  experiences  in  the 
United  States  and  it  is  generally  recognized, 
among  Marxists  at  least,  tliat  the  present  trade 
union  organization  with  its  craft  form  and  its 
small  business  ideals  is  perhaps  the  greatest  ob- 
stacle in  the  path  of  proletarian  progress  at  pres- 
ent. We  may,  therefore,  eliminate  the  highly 
skilled  and  well  organized  mechanic  of  today  as 
a  part  of  the  revolutionary  proletariat. 

There  is  also  a  vast  mass  of  floating  proletari- 
ans, who  belong  to  what  is  generally  called  un- 
skilled labor.  They  are  driven  to  and  fro  ac- 
cording to  the  demands  of  the  labor  market  and 
constitute  a  most  important  body,  particularly  in 
the  far  west.     In  fact,  the  whole  plan  of  de- 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  33 

velopment  of  that  part  of  the  country  is  depend- 
ent upon  them.  They  are  engaged  in  first  this 
business  and  then  that.  In  the  summer  they  are 
in  the  fields  working  on  the  farms  or  ranches, 
and  in  the  winter  large  numbers  flock  into  the 
cities,  there  to  add  to  the  already  overflowing 
supply  of  undifferentiated  labor.  The  roads  are 
full  of  them  at  some  seasons.  They  are  not 
tramps  in  the  general  acceptation ;  in  fact,  they 
are  not  tramps  at  all,  except  so  far  as  they  are 
frequently  obliged  to  travel  on  foot  from  place 
to  place  in  search  of  work.  They  are  objects 
of  persecution  and  graft  to  the  police  and  the 
authorities  of  the  small  towns.  They  are  subjected 
to  many  indignities,  in  .some  places  they  are 
domed  to  the  rock-pile  and  the  jail,  not  because 
of  what  they  have  done,  but  because  of  what 
they  are.  Occasionally  a  city  owns  a  municipal 
quarry,  used  to  provide  stones  for  road  mending. 
The  advent  of  the  migratory  work-seeker  of  the 
variety  described  affords  a  good  chance  to  the 
Tiunicipality  to  acquire  able-bodied  labor  for 
next  to  nothing  and  a  charge  of  vagrancy  is 
sustained  against  a  friendless  and  obviously 
harmless  person  as  soon  as  made.  Hence  the 
city  gets  its  municipal  work  done  by  police- 
guarded  vagrants  at  the  nominal  cost  of  three 
prison  meals  a  day. 

This  class  of  proletarians,  of  course,  has  no 
vote.  They  never  fulfil  the  residential  qualifi- 
cations, hence,  they  are  unable  to  play  any  role  in 
proletarian  revolt  at  the  ballots.  They  have  hith- 
erto been  ignored  as  a  possible  force  tending  to- 
wards the  social  revolution.  Their  apparent  iso- 
lation from  ordinary  life,  their  nomadic  habits^ 


34  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

their  fluidity  would  seem  to  prohibit  their  taking 
any  important  part  in  that  sequence  of  events 
called  the  revolution.  But  of  late  these  unskilled 
and  fluid  laborers  are  showing  some  very  marked 
efforts  in  the  direction  of  successful  organiza- 
tion. In  many  cases  they  have  raised  the  price 
of  farm  labor,  and  have  had  a  distinct  effect  upon 
the  rate  of  wages  for  rough  labor.  They  seem 
to  be  sorting  themselves  out  and  giving  them- 
selves distinctive  names,  such  as  "rough-necks," 
all  of  which  tend  to  show  a  movement  toward 
self-realization.  At  present,  their  efforts  are 
largely  confined  to  making  possible  their  or- 
ganization and  to  securing  the  right  of  free 
speech  for  themselves,  which,  of  course,  is  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  their  active  organiza- 
tion. Even  so,  their  progress  has  been  very 
marked  of  late,  and  it  is  a  distinct  gain  to  the 
proletariat  that  a  portion  of  it,  which  in  the 
very  close  past  could  have  been  ill  treated  and 
imprisoned  with  impunity,  is  now  able  to  com- 
pel the  municipalities  to  allow  its  members  or- 
dinary citizen  rights. 

A  few  years  ago  no  one  would  have  ventured 
to  describe  this  class  as  likely  to  contribute  nota- 
bly to  the  revolutionary  movement.  Now,  how- 
ever, opinions  could  not  be  so  positively  deliv- 
ered on  that  point  and  the  migratory  unskilled 
laborer,  as  he  is  called  in  trade  union  circles,  may 
yet  be  a  most  powerful  force  in  the  Socialist 
direction. 

The  intellectual  proletariat  so  called  is  general- 
ly reckoned  among  Socialist  writers  as  a  po- 
tential force,  at  least,  for  the  revolution.  This 
class  has  come  into  existence  as  a  result  of  the 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  35 

necessary  demand  for  intellectual  workers  in  the 
modern  process.  The  widespread  education  has 
greatly  increased  the  numbers  struggling  for  a 
precarious  livelihood  in  the  professions.  The 
vast  numbers  of  educated  have  tended  to  de- 
crease the  average  returns  for  professional  work 
so  that  as  a  whole  the  so-called  professional 
workers  do  not  occupy  a  much  higher  plane  eco- 
nomically than  do  the  skilled  handworkers.  It 
is  quite  doubtful  if  as  a  body  they  are  actually 
as  well  off.  As  Kautsky  very  aptly  points  out 
men  were  once  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  "ar- 
istocracy of  intellect,"  but  now  they  talk  of  the 
"educated  proletariat." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  earlier  Socialists 
had  expected  more  from  the  educated  classes 
than  they  have  received.  It  was  confidently  be- 
lieved that  men  of  training  and  ability  from  the 
middle  class  would  be  driven  into  the  Socialist 
ranks  and  could  and  would  aid  in  securing  vic- 
tory. But  a  scant  minority  of  this  class,  how- 
ever, comes  into  the  Socialist  movement,  and 
such  as  comes  is,  generally  speaking,  of  but 
dubious  value.  The  most  part  consists  of  those 
who  are  unable  to  succeed  in  their  chosen  voca- 
tions in  the  world.  They  stand  on  practically 
the  same  footing  as  the  unsuccessful  small  busi- 
ness man  who,  failing,  comes  in  to  the  Socialist 
movement.  This  minority  which  comes  in  is  a 
broken  minority,  generally  bankrupt,  not  only 
economically  but  intellectually  as  well.  It  is  not 
the  stuff  out  of  which  a  strong,  energetc,  fighting 
body  can  be  built.  Its  affiliations  with  the  old 
system  are  too  strong,  its  ideas  are  already  fixed, 
and  fixed  wrong,  before  it  comes  into  the  move- 


36  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

ment.  It  has  given  and  gives  more  trouble  than 
any  other  element,  and  almost  all  the  backsliding, 
all  the  hypocrisies,  and  all  the  surrenders  made 
in  the  name  of  politics  in  the  Socialist  movement 
have  been  brought  about  by  just  this  element. 

The  curse  of  the   Socialist  movement  is  the 
small  trader  and  the  professional  man,  the  senti- 
mental failures,  who  have  lost  their  footing  in 
the  world   and   who  persist   in   dreaming  of   a 
Socialist  Kingdom  of  Heaven.     It  is  impossible 
to  make  Socialists,  who  can  stand  up  and  fight, 
out  of  beaten  material.     There  is  much  truth  in 
the  street  slang  that  a  beaten  man  cannot  "come 
back,"    and    those  who    have    suffered    all    the 
agony  inflicted  by  economic  defeat  are  not  such 
as  prove  valuable  recruits,  at  least  for  a  mili- 
tant campaign.    This  "mercantile  and  intellectual 
proletariat,"  as  it  has  been  called,  is  generally 
without  morals,  discipline  or  force.     Indeed  the 
life  of  the  average  middle  class  man  is  lacking 
in  precisely  these  qualities,  and  they  are  quali- 
ties essential  to  a  revolutionaiy  movement.     On 
the  other  hand  these  elements  are  the  source  of 
all  those  weaknesses  in  the  Socialist  movement 
which  occasionally  make  it  the  sport  of  its  ene- 
mies as  well  as  the  despair  of  its  friends.     It  is 
to  the  so-called  intellectual  proletariat  that  we 
have  to  trace  the   sham  altruism,  the  maudlin 
note,  the  whipped  dog  whimper,  which  too  fre- 
quently manifests  itself  in  the  revolutionary  lit- 
erature and  speeches.     For,  the  intellectual  pro- 
letarians labor  under  the  disadvantage  that  they 
are  not  and  never  have  been  producers.    Clergy- 
men, lawyers,  writers  and  newspaper  men  are, 
generally  speaking,  hangers  on.     They  live  for 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE   PROLETARIAT  37 

the  favor  of  other  people  and  grow  into  the  habit 
of  adapting  manners  of  thought  and  expression 
accommodated  to  those  upon  whom  they  look  for 
economic  support.  It  is  obvious  that  such  ma- 
terial is  not  well  calculated  to  make  stalwart 
fighters.  Attention  has  been  called  to  the  same 
phenomenon  in  Europe.  Thus  Paul  Lafargue 
(Socialism  and  the  Intellectuals,  Kerr — Chicago) 
says:  "Jaures  in  his  preface  to  the  Socialist 
History  of  France  says  that  the  intellectual  bour- 
geoisie offended  by  a  brutal  and  commercial  so- 
ciety and  disenchanted  with  the  bourgeois  power 
is  rallying  to  the  support  of  socialism.  Unfor- 
tunately nothing  could  be  less  exact.  This 
transformation  of  the  intellectual  faculties  into 
merchandise,  which  ought  to  have  filled  the  in- 
tellectuals with  wrath  and  indignation,  leaves 
them  indifferent.  *  *  *  To  sell  their  intellectual 
merchandise  has  become  in  turn  such  an  all-ab- 
sorbing principle,  that  if  one  speaks  to  them  of 
socialism,  before  they  inquire  into  its  theories, 
they  ask  whether  in  the  Socialist  society  intel- 
lectual labor  will  be  paid  for  and  whether  it  will 
be  regarded  equally  with  manual  labor." 

Lafargue  discovers  that  the  intellectuals  in 
France  pursue  the  same  tactics  as  they  have 
been  discovered  to  follow  in  this  country.  He 
says: 

These  intellectuals  propose  to  modify  the  tactics, 
as  well  as  the  theories  of  the  socialist  party ;  they  wish 
to  impose  upon  it  a  new  method  of  action.  It  must  no 
longer  strive  to  conquer  the  public  powers  by  a  great 
struggle,  legal  or  revolutionary,  as  need  may  be,  but 
let  itself  be  conquered  by  every  ministry  of  a  republi- 
can coalition ;  it  is  no  longer  to  oppose  the  socialist 
party  to  all  the  bourgeois  parties ;  what  is  needed  is 


38  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

to  put  it  at  the  service  of  the  Hbeial  party;  we  must 
no  longer  organize  it  for  the  class  struggle,  but  keep 
it  ready  for  all  the  compromises  of  politicians.  And, 
to  further  the  triumph  of  the  new  method  of  action, 
they  propose  to  disorganize  the  socialist  party,  to  break 
up  its  old  systems  and  to  demoHsh  the  organizations 
which  for  twenty  years  have  labored  to  give  the  work- 
ers a  sense  of  their  class  interests  and  to  group  them 
in  a  party  of  economic  and  political  struggle. 

It  is  true  that  the  same  writer  laments  the 
absence  of  the  intellectuals  from  the  Socialist 
movement.  He  declares  that  the  interests  of  in- 
tellectual and  proletarian  are  alike  anti-capital- 
istic and  declares : 

United  in  production,  united  under  the  yoke  of 
capitalist  exploitation,  united  they  should  be  also  in 
revolt  against  the  common  enemy.  The  intellectuals, 
if  they  understood  their  own  real  interests,  would 
come  in  crowds  to  socialism,  not  through  philanthropy, 
nor  through  pity  for  the  miseries  of  the  workers,  not 
through  affectation  and  snobbery,  but  to  save  them- 
selves, to  assure  the  future  welfare  of  their  wives  and 
children,  to  fulfill  their  duty  to  their  class.  They  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  being  left  behind  in  the  social  battle 
by  their  comrades  in  the  manual  category.  They  have 
many  things  to  teach  them,  but  they  have  still  much 
to  learn  from  them ;  the  workingmen  have  a  practical 
sense  superior  to  theirs,  and  have  given  proof  oi  an 
instinctive  intuition  of  the  communist  tendencies  of 
modern  capitalism,  which  is  lacking  to  the  intellectuals, 
who  have  only  been  able  by  a  conscious  mental  effort 
to  arrive  at  this  conception.  If  only  they  had  under- 
stood their  own  interests,  they  would  long  since  have 
turned  against  the  capitalist  class  the  education  which 
it  has  generously  distributed  in  order  better  to  exploit 
them ;  they  would  have  utilized  their  intellectual  ca- 
pacities, which  are  enriching  their  masters,  as  so  many 
improved  weapons  to  fight  capitalism  and  to  conquer 
the  freedom  of  their  class,  the  wage-working  class. 

However  much  we  may  agree  with  Lafargue, 
his  lament  is  vain,  for,  in  general,  the  really  use- 


SOCIALISM   AND  THE  PROLETARIAT  39 

ful  intellectual  will  not  come  intOfthe  Socialist 
movement  until  it  has  progressed  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  he  can  serve  the  movement  without 
materially  damaging  his  interests. 

Hence  it  is  obvious  that  the  intellectual  can- 
not be  regarded  as  a  dependable  factor  in  the 
revolutionary  movement  of  the  proletarian. 

The  proletariat  in  its  revolutionary  manifesta- 
tions then,  does  not  appear  by  any  means  as 
a  united  body.  The  whole  proletarian  army  does 
not  move  en  masse  upon  the  bourgeois  enemy. 
The  revolutionary  tendencies  of  the  proletarian 
class  must  be  sought  in  some  moving  force,  other 
than  the  mere  conglomeration  covered  by  the 
generic  term  proletarian. 

Whence  then  comes  this  force,  or  does  it  come 
at  all?  Is  the  Marxian  notion  of  a  proletarian 
revolutionary  movement,  spontaneously  coming 
into  being  as  the  result  of  economic  conditions 
altogether  vain? 

Decidedly  not.  There  is  a  proletarian  revo- 
lutionary movement,  there  is  a  force  at  work 
among  the  working  class,  which  produces  a  mili- 
tant attitude  on  the  part  of  that  class.  That  is 
a  fact  which  cannot  be  ignored.  Even  the  daily 
papers  are  filled  with  the  accounts  of  its  manifes- 
tations. From  what  portion  of  the  working 
class  then  does  this  manifestation  come?  Who 
are  the  militant? 


II 

THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Kautsky  has  called  attention  in  "The  Class 
Struggle,"  from  which  we  have  quoted  so  often, 
because  it  is  probably  the  best  interpretation  of 
Marxism  and  the  Erfurt  Program,  to  the  fact 
that  a  militant  body  arises  in  the  masses  of  the 
proletarians.  He  puts  it  in  the  following  lan- 
guage : 

Thus,  there  has  gradually  formed  from  skilled  and 
unskilled  workers  a  body  of  proletarians  who  are  in 
the  movement  of  labor,  or  the  labor  movement.  It 
is  the  part  of  the  proletariat  which  is  fighting  for  the 
interests  of  the  whole  class,  its  church  militant,  as  it 
were.  This  division  grows  at  the  expense  both  of  the 
"Aristocrats  of  labor"  and  of  the  common  mob  which 
still  vegetates,  helpless  and  hopeless.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  laboring  proletariat  is  constantly  in- 
creasing; we  know,  further,  that  it  tends  more  and 
more  to  set  the  pace  in  thought  and  feeling  for  the 
other  working  classes.  We  now  see,  that,  in  this  grow- 
ing mass  of  workers,  the  militant  division  increases 
not  only  absolutely,  but  relatively.  No  matter  how 
fast  the  proletariat  may  grow,  this  militant  division 
of  it  grows  still   faster. 

But,  it  is  precisely  this  militant  proletariat  which 
is  the  most  fruitful  recruiting  ground  for  socialism. 
The  socialist  movement  is  nothing  more  than  the  part 
of  this  militant  proletariat  which  has  become  conscious 
of  its  goal.  In  fact,  these  two,  socialism  and  the  mil- 
itant proletariat,  tend  constantly  to  become  identical. 
In  Germany  and  Austria  their  identity  is  already  an 
accomplished  fact. 

40 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  41 

This  says,  essentially,  that  among  the  prole- 
tarian element  there  is  a  growing  body  which 
adopts  an  attitude  of  revolt  towards  the  exist- 
ing system  and  that  the  members  of  this  body 
constitute  the  active  revolutionary  part  of  the 
proletariat,  which  becomes  Socialist.  But  this 
gives  us  no  information  as  to  the  special  marks 
of  this  revolutionary  element.  If  it  consists 
merely  of  those  who  are  temperamentally  in- 
clined to  take  the  radical  side  in  a  controversy, 
merely  of  those  who  are  in  the  language  of  the 
street  "chronic  kickers,"  we  learn  nothing  of  value 
respecting  its  composition ;  for,  a  like  proportion 
of  discontented  and  radical  persons  would  proba- 
bly be  found  in  any  other  portion  of  the  popu- 
lation. Thus  "the  burden  of  the  day"  is  re- 
sented by  professional  men  and  middle  class 
people,  generally,  as  the  "Progressive"  move- 
ment in  this  country  testifies. 

Every  movement  must  have  its  nucleus ;  the 
central  group  to  which  the  movement  is  econom- 
ically and  essentially  necessary,  and  which  exer- 
cises an  influence,  constantly  widening,  from 
that  nucleus,  in  proportion  to  the  power  exercised 
by  and  the  development  of  that  nucleus.  Thus, 
generally  speaking,  the  interests  of  the  shop- 
keeper are  not  the  interests  of  the  proletarian. 
In  fact  they  are  quite  other.  The  classes  are 
antagonistic  and  as  buyer  and  seller  they  are  at 
opposite  poles  and  mutually  in  antithesis.  Yet  in 
times  of  strike  the  small  shopkeeper  finds  his 
interest  and  that  of  the  proletarian  practically 
identical  because  the  small  shopkeeper  maintains 
his  existence  by  selling  to  the  proletarian.  Hence 
he  profits  in  proportion  as  the  proletarian  im- 


42  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

proves  his  position.  The  result  is  that  we  find 
the  dealers  in  the  districts  which  the  working 
class  inhabit  voting  the  Socialist  ticket  in  large 
numbers.  Also  in  times  of  strike  the  small  shop- 
keepers are  usually  on  the  side  of  the  working 
class  to  whom  they  give  credit.  Thus  the  in- 
fluence of  a  group  may  be  powerful,  not  only 
over  those  who  are  directly  affiliated  wnth  the 
group,  but  over  those  also  who  are  dragged 
nolentes  volentes  in  the  direction  taken  by  the 
controlling  group.  An  admirable  instance  of  this 
is  seen  in  a  Western  Federation  of  Miners 
camp.  Here  the  economic  organization  of  the 
miners  is  in  control.  The  whole  community 
is  dependent  upon  the  organization,  and  classes 
which  would,  under  other  circumstances,  be  an- 
tagonistic to  the  working  class  are  there  forced 
into  support  of  it,  by  virtue  of  its  position. 

It  becomes  of  interest  to  discover  what  is  that 
group  in  the  proletariat  which  is  militant  and 
what  influence  it  can  exercise  over  the  mass  of 
proletarians,  as  well  as  the  actual  power  which 
it  could  wield  if  brought  into  the  field. 

It  is  just  here  that  the  distinction  between 
those  European  countries  in  which  liberalism  has 
not  fully  developed  and  the  English  speaking 
communities  in  which  liberalism  has  practically 
attained  its  maximum  becomes  very  apparent. 
This  fact  of  the  development  of  liberalism  is 
the  determining  fact  as  regards  the  actual  revo- 
lutionary attitude  of  the  proletarian  or  that  part 
of  which  is  described  as  militant.  Even  the 
vestiges  of  the  feudal  system  still  remaining  in 
Great  Britain,  the  established  church,  the  throne, 
the  house  of  lords,  the  plural  voting,  the  hun- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  43 

dred  and  one  stupid  little  abuses  and  survivals 
which  are  so  many  obstacles  in  the  path  of  prog- 
ress all  interfere  to  prevent  that  essential  devel- 
opment of  the  proletariat  proper  into  a  fighting 
body  with  a  mission  to  accomplish.  In  fact,  as 
we  have  seen,  Kautsky  goes  on  to  say  forth- 
with :  "The  Socialist  movement  is  nothing  more 
than  the  part  of  this  militant  proletariat  which 
has  become  conscious  of  its  goal.  In  fact,  those 
two,  socialism  and  the  militant  proletariat  tend 
constantly  to  become  identical.  In  Germany  and 
Austria,  their  identity  is  already  an  assured  fact." 
But  how  far  is  the  realization  of  the  Socialist 
movement  in  the  countries  mentioned  a  prole- 
tarian manifestation  proper  and  how  far  is  it  just 
a  liberal  demonstration  which  parades  under  the 
Socialist  name,  and  pretends  to  threaten  a  pro- 
letarian revolt,  whereas  it  really  means  to  ac- 
complish certain  necessary  bourgeois  reforms? 
To  still  further  confuse  the  matter,  Kautsky 
says:  "To  make  this  great  mass  (the  working 
class)  feel  its  common  interests,  to  induce  it 
to  act  as  one  in  an  organization,  it  is  necessary 
to  have  means  of  communicating  with  large 
numbers.  A  free  press  and  the  right  of  as- 
semblage are  absolutely  essential."  It  is  useless 
to  endeavor  to  discover  how  far  a  movement 
is  really  Socialist  or  proletarian  in  a  community 
which  does  not  possess  the  absolutely  fundamen- 
tal pre-requisites  of  a  free  press  and  free  speech. 
These  are  admitted  primary  essentials  lacking 
which  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  any  real  work- 
ing class  movement  being  practical.  Until  such 
concessions,  at  least,  are  won  the  class  war  may 
be  considered  practically  in  abeyance,  for,  it  is 


44  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

evident  that  proletarian  and  bourgeois  must 
unite  on  the  same  platform  as  regards  these 
fundamentals.  A  threat  of  the  destruction  of 
the  constitutional  guarantees,  or  even  a  tendency 
to  impair  them  would  have  in  this  country  the 
effect  of  merging  together  whole  masses  of  peo- 
ple who  would  in  reality  have  nothing  more  in 
common  than  the  preservation  of  bourgeois  lib- 
erties, and  who,  when  their  purpose  was  achieved 
would  find  themselves  divided  by  varying  eco- 
nomic and  consequently  political  interests. 

When  one  contemplates  the  political  blurriness 
of  the  European  countries  with  the  clearness  of 
the  United  States  as  regards  politics,  it  will  be 
seen  that  there  is  no  standard  by  which  we  can 
measure  the  relative  strength  of  the  militant  pro- 
letariat in  the  two  hemispheres. 

There  is  no  question  that  the  political  work 
of  liberalism  must  be  accomplished  and  got  out 
of  the  way  before  any  new  and  peculiarly  so- 
cialist departure  is  possible.  This  can  be  readily 
seen  in  the  English  Parliament  where  the  Inde- 
pendent Labor  Party,  ostensibly  returned  to  look 
after  the  interests  of  the  working  class  and  to  be 
the  representative  of  the  militant  proletarian,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  becomes  tied  to  the  Liberal 
Party  and  spends  most  of  its  time  and  effort 
in  carrying  out  bourgeois  reforms. 

Up  to  this  point  the  path  of  the  proletarian 
is  not  difficult,  no  questions  of  any  great  moment 
calling  for  any  particular  statesmanship  in  the 
conduct  of  the  agitation  actually  appear.  It  is 
easy  to  declare  the  policy  of  the  proletarian  to 
be  the  keeping  of  his  own  political  organiza- 
tion and  the  working  out  of  necessary  political 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  45 

bourgeois  measures  in  which  the  socialist  party 
represents  the  combined  interests  of  the  prole- 
tarian class  and  of  many  bourgeois.  Thus  in 
speaking  of  the  relative  values  of  political  and 
economic  movement  Kautsky  says :  "The  fact  is 
that  the  two  cannot  be  separated.  The  economic 
struggle  demands  political  rights  and  these  will 
not  fall  from  heaven.  To  receive  and  maintain 
them  tliie  most  vigorous  political  action  is  neces- 
sary. The  political  struggle  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  the  last  analysis,  an  economic  struggle. 
Often,  in  fact,  it  is  directly  and  openly  economic, 
as  when  it  deals  with  tariff  and  factory  laws. 
The  political  struggle  is  merely  a  political  form 
of  the  economic  struggle,  in  fact  its  most  in- 
clusive and  vital  form."  All  of  which  reads 
admirably  but  in  reality  does  not  amount  to 
much,  at  least  as  a  guide,  in  determining  the 
nature  of  the  militant  proletariat  in  the  United 
States  and  its  plan  of  campaign.  For  that  which 
Kautsky  expects  to  achieve  by  politics  seems  al- 
ready to  have  been  achieved  here  without  work- 
ing class  political  intervention,  and,  for  the  rest, 
tariff  laws  do  not  bear  practically  upon  the 
economic  condition  of  the  working  class,  neither 
is  such  factory  legislation  as  has  been  secured 
in  any  way  dependent  upon  the  action  of  the 
militant  proletariat.  He  claims  parliamentarism 
an  essential  to  the  working  class  because  great 
capitalists  can  influence  legislators  directly,  but 
the  proletariat  only  by  a  show  of  electoral  force. 
In  this  country,  however,  where  political  char- 
latanry and  the  trade  of  vote-catching  has  de- 
veloped into  a  fine  art,  the  professional  pol- 
itician  can   detect   the   slightest   popular   move- 


46  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

ment,  and  he  forthwith  begins  to  lay  his  schemes 
to  take  advantage  of  it,  for  the  furtherance  of 
his  own  personal  advancement,  independent  of 
other  considerations. 

Kautsky  also  claims  that  parliamentarism  on 
the  part  of  the  proletariat  tends  to  change  the 
character  of  parliament  itself  and  is  "the  most 
powerful  lever  to  raise  the  proletariat  out  of  its 
economic,  social  and  moral  degradation."  All  of 
which  appears  by  the  way  to  be  a  mere  begging 
of  the  question,  for  such  results  do  not  actually 
seem  to  have  followed  so-called  proletarian 
political  action  as  far  as  we  know  it.  In  fact, 
the  general  conclusion  which  Kautsky  reaches  is 
so  lame  as  to  be  altogether  unworthy  of  the 
strength  and  directness  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  associate  with  that  author.  It  is  thus  ex- 
pressed: "Besides  freedom  of  the  press  and  the 
right  to  organize,  the  universal  ballot  is  to  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  conditions  prerequiste 
to  a  sound  development  of  the  proletariat." 

In  the  United  States  we  have  practically  all 
of  these.  It  is  true  that  occasionally  we  have  to 
complain  of  governmental  aggressions,  and  that 
there  is  a  relatively  increasing  number  of  citi- 
zens who  do  not  have  the  ballot,  also  that  the 
later  naturalization  laws  tend  to  make  it  more 
difficult  to  become  citizens,  but  on  the  whole  at 
the  present  we  may  safely  claim  to  be  fully  in 
possession  of  those  valuable  prerequisites  to  pro- 
letarian action. 

Still  the  question  of  militant  proletarian  action 
is  a  burning  one,  and  the  American  proletarian 
movement  by  no  means  so  simple  and  strong, 
in  spite  of  these  manifest  advantages,  that  we 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  47 

can  easily  and  readily  define  its  line  of  march. 
Occasionally,  we  have  a  victory  of  what  would 
be  generally  considered  as  the  proletariat,  and  in 
Australia  there  is  actually  a  working  class  gov- 
ernment in  full  control  of  the  Commonwealth. 
There  exists  a  body  of  wage  earners,  with  what 
would  seem  to  be  a  class  movement.  They  have 
the  economic  power,  for  labor  is  so  well  or- 
ganized that  it  can  practically  control  the  situa- 
tion in  Australia.  They  have  obviously  the  po- 
litical power,  for  they  are  admittedly  in  control 
of  the  government.  If  there  ever  was  an  op- 
portunity for  showing  the  transforming  influ- 
ence of  the  proletarian  upon  government,  Aus- 
tralia has  certainly  had  that  opportunity.  We 
do  not  find,  however,  any  signs  of  a  change 
which  would  predispose  us  to  regard  with  par- 
ticular favor  such  manifestations  as  have  oc- 
curred in  a  British  Parliament  by  virtue  of  the 
introduction,  or  rather  the  domination  of  what 
Kautsky  would  unquestionably  have  called  the 
proletarian  element.  Is  the  Australian  Common- 
wealth Government  to  be  regarded  as  a  type  of 
government  by  the  militant  proletariat?  If  so, 
the  whole  matter  might  as  well  be  relegated  to 
the  dust  heap  of  profitless  discussion,  for  the 
Labor  Government  of  Australia  rises  no  higher 
than  other  governments,  in  that  it  carefully  and 
scrupulously  enforces  law  for  the  benefit  of  the 
dominant  capitalism.  Call  it  by  what  name  you 
will,  the  government  of  today  is  the  expression 
of  the  dominant  economic  force,  that  is,  the  force 
of  the  greater  capitalism,  and  no  government, 
whatever  its  pretensions,  can  be  more  than  that. 
Whether   it  be   Aristide   Briand,   using   all   the 


48  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

powers  of  government  for  the  suppression  of 
the  general  strike,  or  an  AustraHan  Common- 
wealth Government,  employing  all  the  resources 
of  governmental  "organization  against  strikers, 
even  to  the  extent  of  imprisoning  them  for  re- 
fusing to  handle  scab  materials,  the  results  are 
the  same.  They  do  not  seem  to  diifer  very  much, 
moreover,  from  those  which  we  witness  in  other 
communities  of  less  pretensions,  and  where  the 
governments  are  more  or  less  frankly  the  ex- 
ponents of  the  same  dominant  economic  power. 

It  does  not  seem  to  be  so  much  a  matter  of 
names  as  of  attitude  of  mind.  To  call  a  labor 
party  into  existence  upon  a  political  basis  is 
merely  to  give  political  expression  to  the  eco- 
nomic interests  of  the  labor  organizations  which 
have  combined  for  political  purposes.  The  care- 
less observer  might  be  tempted  to  assume  that 
the  individuals  combining  would  of  necessity 
have  the  working  class  point  of  view  and  to  pre- 
dict that  (the  working  class  attitude  of  mind 
being  naturally  antagonistic  to  the  capitalistic) 
the  working  class  movement,  so  called,  would  by 
sheer  force  of  its  own  propulsion,  find  itself  a 
socialist  movement,  having  for  its  obpect  the 
destruction  of  the  existing  system.  But  no  such 
thing  really  occurs.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  trade 
union  organization  converted  into  a  political 
party  rises  no  higher  than  its  trade  union  concep- 
tion. This  is,  as  we  have  said  already,  that  the 
relation  of  employer  and  employe  is  a  purely 
contractual  relation  in  which  the  employer  owns 
the  tools  and  the  employe  owns  the  labor  power. 

It  is  obvious  that  when  this  is  translated  into 
politics,  su^h  a  party  may  easily  be  of  actual 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  49 

service  to  the  employing  class  and  this  indeed 
has  happened  on  many  occasions.  In  fact,  it  is 
happening  continually  in  those  parts  of  the  world 
where  the  capitalists  can  the  better  carry  out 
their  plans  by  means  of  a  labor  party.  Even  the 
actual  socialist  movement,  so-called,  need  by  no 
means  constitute  a  militant  proletariat.  In  fact, 
the  socialist  movement  might  be,  and,  indeed,  is 
in  some  places,  notably  in  the  United  States,  not 
a  movement  of  the  militant  proletariat  at  all,  but 
one  in  which  petit-bourgeois  and  trade  unionists 
find  a  common  ground  of  political  action,  and 
which  cannot  be  differentiated  in  any  important 
respects  from  the  labor  parties  elsewhere,  as  we 
have  described  them.  In  fact  so  slight  is  the 
difference,  that  in  California,  where  a  Union 
Labor  Party  has  been  in  control  of  the  City  of 
San  Francisco,  and  the  Socialist  Party  has 
shown  a  tendency  to  increase  its  vote  in  the 
State,  strong  representations  have  been  made 
that  an  amalgamation  of  the  two  elements  would 
be  good  for  both,  although  the  Union  Labor 
Party  is  not  only  essentially  conservative,  having 
progressed  no  further  than  the  old  and  well  worn 
idea  of  fair  play  between  capital  and  labor,  but 
is  actually  playing  the  game  and  furthering  the 
interests  of  the  great  capitalism  in  the  city  of 
San  Francisco. 

We  must  evidently  go  further  than  names  if 
we  desire  to  find  the  militant  proletariat.  In 
fact  these  conditions  are  actually  typical  of  what 
is  going  on  all  over  the  world.  There  seems  to 
be  what  one  might  call  the  outer  shell  of  an  os- 
tensibly labor  and  so  called  socialist  movement, 
hiding  a  distinctly  bourgeois  and  compromising 


50  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

kernel.  We  find  the  same  phenomenon  in 
France,  in  Italy,  in  Australia,  as  well  as  in  the 
United  States. 

There  is  besides  this  expression,  however,  of 
the  craft  unions  and  the  small  business  men,  who, 
after  all,  constitute  the  bulk  of  so-called  labor 
and  socialist  parties,  a  certain  nucleus  which  is 
forming  noticeably  at  the  present  time.  Some- 
times it  lives  inside  the  so-called  socialist  and 
labor  parties,  particularly  in  countries  which 
have  imperfectly  developed  from  the  feudal 
State,  as  Germany.  There,  as  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  all  sections  of  the  radicals  must  of 
necessity  work  together  for  the  abolition  of  the 
remains  of  feudalism,  and  until  the  liberalistic 
work,  which  should  never  have  fallen  to  the  task 
of  the  Socialist  Party,  is  accomplished,  the  pe- 
culiar work  of  the  Socialist  movement  eannot  be 
taken  up.  In  other  places,  such  as  France,  there 
is  a  distinct  revolutionary  nucleus  outside  of  the 
Socialist  movement,  so-called,  at  least  outside  of 
that  morement,  as  politically  expressed.  The 
same  facts  are  found  in  most  other  modern  coun- 
tries. Even  in  Australia,  a  Socialist  movement 
grows  and  spreads  outside  of  the  dominant  labor 
party,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  United  States. 

Here  the  Socialist  Party,  which  has  developed 
with  great  rapidity,  takes  on  more  and  more  the 
form  of  the  labor  parties  as  developed  elsewhere, 
with  a  remnant  of  the  revolutionary  idealism 
which  is  associated  with  the  European  Social 
Democratic  Parties.  Only  of  late  has  it,  however, 
become  markedly  popular  with  the  trade  union 
bodies  and  only  in  certain  localities  merely.  Still, 
as  the  numerical  importance  of  the  party  in- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  51 

creases  and  its  chances  of  gaining  votes  grow,  it 
tends  to  become  more  popular  with  the  organized' 
labor  bodies  and  as  they  come  into  it  it  mirrors 
to  a  more  complete  degre  the  political  ambitions 
of  the  craft  unionists  and  thus  tends  to  become 
less,  revolutionary  and  more  political.  Outside 
of  this  party  other  groups  are  forming.  These 
tend,  by  virtue  largely  of  reaction  against  the 
bourgeoisization  of  the  Socialist  Party,  to  adopt 
a  non-political  attitude  in  the  beginning,  which, 
not  infrequently,  becomes  an  actually  anti- 
political  attitude.  Such,  however,  must  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  be  but  transitory.  They  call 
more  particularly  for  industrial  action  for  the 
purpose  of  producing  direct  economic  effects  of  a 
revolutionary  nature.  But  such  economic  effects 
when  once  produced  must  of  necessity  produce 
their  political  reflex.  It  cannot  be  otherwise. 
In  their  ranks  the  militant  proletariat  must  be 
found.  Here  we  must  look  for  the  realization  of 
the  proletariat  as  thus  described  in  the  "Com- 
munist Manifesto."  Of  all  the  classes  that  stand 
face  to  face  with  the  bourgeoisie  today,  the  pro- 
letariat alone  is  a  really  revolutionary  class.  The 
other  classes  decay  and  finally  disappear  in  the 
case  of  modern  industry;  the  proletariat  is  its 
special  and  essential  product. 

THE  MACHINE   PROLETARIAT 

The  statement  at  the  close  of  the  last  section, 
to  the  effect  that  the  proletariat  is  the  special 
and  essential  product  of  modern  industry,  should 
be  considered  as  a  starting  point  for  discussion 
of  the  moving  revolutionary  force.  In  fact  when 
we  more  closely  examine  the  statement  we  see 
that  this  is  practically  the  sole  basis  of  the  So- 


52  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

cialist  contention  stripped  of  propaganda  glamor 
and  unnecessary  rhetoric.  The  contention  is  es- 
sentially as  follows :  A  given  society  produces  its 
own  destruction  by  the  operation  of  economic 
forces  in  that  society,  which  cannot  be  avoided, 
but  which  are  inherent  in  that  form  of  society. 
A  new  class  comes  into  existence  in  terms  of  the 
conditions  this  generated  and  this  class  causes  the 
overthrow  of  the  former  dominant  class.  The 
most  striking  instance  is,  of  course,  the  over- 
turn of  the  feudal  nobility  by  the  bourgeoisie, 
which  was  a  product  of  feudalism,  developing 
out  of  it,  and  finally  destroying  it.  In  the  same 
way  the  proletariat  has  developed  as  the  result 
of  the  present  system,  and  is  held  to  be  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  existing  ruling  class. 

The  mere  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  proletariat, 
however,  by  no  means  forces  the  conclusion  that 
such  a  class  is,  of  necessity,  revolutionary,  still 
less  does  it  follow  automatically  that  the  class 
will  be  victorious  in  its  revolutionary  attempt, 
even  granting  it  the  revolutionary  state  of  mind. 
In  fact,  the  teaching  of  history  would  seem  to 
point  to  failure  rather  than  ■  success  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  revolutionary  operations  of  the  so- 
called  proletariat,  and  that,  so  far  at  least,  the 
proletariat,  as  a  whole,  cannot  be  brought  into 
the  field. 

But  it  is  certain  also  that  there  is  a  militant 
nucleus  in  that  proletarian  mass,  for  we  see 
daily  evidences  of  it.  Also  we  know  that  a 
nucleus  is  sufficient,  provided  that  its  interests 
and  its  mental  structure  are  antagonistic  to  and 
irreconcilable  with  the  existing  regime  so  as  to 
form  a  revolutionary  core  around  which  might 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  53 

gather  and  organize  elements  and  groups  other- 
wise unorganizable.  So  that  by  virtue  of  the 
organization  at  the  center  the  whole  mass  might 
be  projected  against  the  governmental  forces, 
the  movement  being  precipitated  by  probably 
some  momentary  or  trivial  cause,  and  what  is 
called  a  revolution  occur. 

Of  course,  that  occurrence  is  not  in  itself  the 
revolution.  It  is  only  the  last  act  in  a  series  of 
acts  tending  to  produce  the  definitive  result,  the 
end  of  a  process  which  has  on  the  one  hand  con- 
tributed continually  to  weaken  the  possessing 
class  and  on  the  other  hand  to  swell  the  strength 
of  the  attacking  forces.  There  may  be  so-called 
revolutions  for  which  all  this  preliminary  or- 
ganization and  the  existence  of  a  strong  nucleus 
do  not  appear  to  be  necessary.  Such,  however, 
will  be  found  not  to  be  revolutionary  movements 
proper,  but  what  are  called  "palace  revolutions" 
merely.  These  are  such  as  involve  a  mere  change 
in  the  personnel  of  the  government,  but  do  not 
imply  a  fundamental  change  in  the  social  struc- 
ture such  as  is  involved  in  the  triumph  of  one 
economic  class  over  another.  Such,  to  all  ap- 
pearances, at  present  writing  (May,^  1911),^  is 
the  so-called  revolutionary  movement  in  Mexico, 
A  change  of  government,  the  result  of  which 
would  be  the  substitution  of  Madero  for  Diaz, 
could  not  be  other  than  a  "palace  revolution." 
But  there  are  also  involved  in  the  Mexican  dis- 
turbances the  economic  demands  of  nurnbers  of 
Mexican  peasants  who  require  the  abolition  of 
peonage  and  the  security  to  themselves  of 
sufficient  land  to  enable  them  to  live  indepen- 
dently.   This  latter  class  forms  the  real  economic 


54  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

basis  of  a  Mexican  revolution,  and  its  victory 
would  have  distinct  governmental  effects,  for, 
besides  involving  the  economic  fact  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  great  estates,  the  political  effect 
would  be  seen  in  the  assumption  of  governmental 
functions  by  the  new  small  land  proprietors. 
This  would  necessarily  give  an  entirely  different 
complexion  to  a  government  which  is  now  con- 
ducted exclusively  in  the  interests  of  the  large 
landholders  and  high  finance. 

Each  revolution  is  made  fundamentally  by  a 
typical  class  produced  by  the  conditions  against 
which  the  revolution  is  conducted.  The  peculiar 
product  of  the  existing  regime  overthrows  it.  A 
class  of  semi-independent  yeomen  and  still  more 
independent  burghers  who  had  grown  up  in  the 
lap  of  the  feudal  system  formed  the  nucleus  of 
that  force  which  overthrew  the  feudal  system  and 
enabled  the  regenerating  revolutionists  to  develop 
into  the  bourgeois  tyrants  of  today. 

The  question,  therefore,  which  must  be  an- 
swered before  anything  can  be  predicted  of  the 
sucess  of  the  social  revolution  is,  how  far  have 
the  bourgeois  conditions  actually  produced  a  class 
sufficiently  differentiated  from  the  dominant  type, 
to  form  a  revolutionary  nucleus?  Then  inquiry 
must  be  made  into  the  potentialities  of  this  class 
as  a  revolutionary  force. 

The  general  and  very  unsatisfactory  reply  of 
the  ordinary  Socialist  agitator  to  the  question. 
Who  will  make  the  revolution?  is,  the  People. 
This  People  notion  is  a  pious  legacy  bequeathed 
to  him,  religiously  passed  on  in  church  and  school, 
and  never  questioned  or  analyzed.  The  bour- 
geois  revolution   sanctified   itself   as   a  popular 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  55 

revolution  and  incessantly  paraded  the  People  as 
the  source  of  its  authority  and  the  moving  im- 
pulse of  its  action.  The  word,  as  victory  was 
achieved,  came  to  have  a  certain  sanctity  which 
was  exaggerated  in  the  case  of  some  of  the 
later  revolutionists,  like  Mazzini,  into  a  kind 
of  mysticism.  The  People  were  then  sufficiently 
to  be  differentiated  from  the  rulers  to  make  a 
distinct  body,  with  identity  of  interests,  in  terms 
of  which  they  could  fight,  and  which  would  form 
the  foundations  of  government  should  the  Peo- 
ple succeed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  those  interests 
have  been  made  the  foundations  of  the  laws 
of  modern  states.  It  is  by  appeal  to  these  old 
demands  expanded  and  idealized  that  the  so- 
called  reformers  of  the  present  day  claim  that 
they  will  be  able  to  abolish  the  tyranny  of  the 
great  and  restore  republican  conditions  in  an 
oligarchy  of  wealth.  But  the  so-called  People  no 
longer  exists  for  political  purposes.  The  People 
is  no  entity  except  as  regards  the  inviolability  of 
the  national  soil,  and  since  the  anti-militaristic 
campaign  has  spread  so  widely  and  so  fast,  it  is 
questionable  if  it  is  an  effective  entity  even 
for  that  purpose. 

The  essentials  of  a  revolutionary  class  are 
that  it  should  have  sprung  from  the  conditions 
against  which  it  rebels,  that  it  should  have 
economic  interests  antagonistic  to  those  of  the 
governing  class,  and  the  other  condition  follows 
that  its  mode  of  thought  and  expression  should 
be  other  than  those  typica?  of  the  conditions 
against  which  the  revolution  is  to  be  directed. 

These  characteristics  are  the  essential  marks  of 
a  victorious  revolutionary  class.    Without  them 


56  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

a  discontented  body,  merely  dissatisfied  with 
things  as  they  are,  can  achieve  nothing  because 
its  demands  have  no  real  point  of  differentiation 
from  the  existing  conditions,  and  because,  in  spite 
of  the  poverty  of  the  members  of  the  revolting 
class,  its  mental  viewpoint  and  its  ethics  are 
those  of  the  dominant  class.  Hence,  we  find 
that  mere  riots  and  tumults,  Jacqueries,  and 
trades  union  risings  like  those  in  Barcelona,  and, 
to  a  more  limited  degree,  in  this  country,  have 
accomplished  nothing  of  any  permanent  value. 
They  have  been  just  hunger  rebellions,  lacking 
cohesive  power,  and  the  great  impulse  of  a  com- 
mon idea,  lacking  also  the  unbridgable  separa- 
tion between  the  mind  of  the  rebels  and  the 
mind  of  the  masters,  a  separation  which  becomes 
an  antagonism  irreconcilable  and  complete,  ow- 
ing to  the  psychological  conditions  produced  by 
the  existence  of  the  actual  economic  fact. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  Populist  move- 
ment in  the  United  States  which  at  one  time  bid 
fair  to  be  a  powerful  revolt  movement.  Its  call 
to  all  the  producers  might  have  had  some  political 
effect,  save  for  the  fact  that  the  return  of  fairly 
good  times  and  a  sudden  improvement  in  the 
condition  of  the  farmer  destroyed  the  fun- 
damental basis  of  what  was  after  all  largely  a 
hunger  movement. 

The  economic  fact,  on  each  side  of  which  the 
opposing  classes  are  arrayed,  produces  psy- 
chological results  on  each  of  those  classes  which 
render  them  more  and  more  antagonistic  and 
their  mutual  agreement  continually  less  possible. 
We  have  seen,  for  example,  in  the  history  of  the 
breakup  of  the  feudal  system,  how  the  develop.- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  57 

ment  of  the  middle  class  and  the  economic  fact 
which  gave  rise  to  it  deepened  and  accentuated 
the  antagonism  between  the  feudal  nobility  and 
the  bourgeoisie,  until  compromise  was  practically 
impossible. 

Given  the  militant  nucleus  which  tends  towards 
revolution,  does  the  present  system  produce  such 
an  economic  fact  as  to  render  antagonism  on  each 
side  of  that  fact  complete,  and  is  the  fact  so  es- 
sential to  the  modern  system  as  to  be  in- 
dispensable?    If  so,  what  is  that  fact? 

There  is  one  essential  and  indispensable  eco- 
nomic fact  in  the  existing  system  peculiar  to  it 
and  inseparable  from  it.  This  fact  produces 
psychological  effects,  which  are  mutually  an- 
tagonistic and  which  render  agreement  between 
the  parties  on  each  side  of  the  fact  impossible 
and  whicTi,"  moreover,  produce  a  revolutionary 
mental  state  in  the  mind  of  the  subject  of  the 
economic  fact.    That  fact  is  the  machine  process. 

The  machine  process  has  been  discussed  by 
numerous  modern  writers,  notably  by  Cook 
Taylor  in  his  "Modern  Factory  System"  and 
more  briefly,  but  far  more  effectively,  by  Thor- 
stein  Veblen  in  his  "The  Theory  of  Business 
Enterprise"  (Scribners).  This  latter  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  present  writer,  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  works  on  this  and  kindred  subjects. 

The  machine-process  is  thus  defined: 

Whenever  manual  dexterity,  the  rule  of  thumb,  and 
the  fortuitous  conjunctures  of  the  seasons  have  been 
supplanted  by  a  reasoned  procedure  on  the  basis  of 
a  systematic  knowledge  of  the  forces  employed,  there 
the  mechanical  industry  is  to  be  found,  even  in  the 
absence  of  intricate  mechanical   contrivances.     It  is   a 


58  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

question  of  the  character  of  the  process  rather  than 
a  question  of  the  complexity  of  the  contrivances  em- 
ployed. Chemical,  agricultural,  and  animal  industries, 
as  carried  on  by  the  characteristically  modern  methods 
and  in  due  touch  with  the  market,  are  to  be  included 
in  the  modern  complex  of  mechanical  industry. 

The  machine-process  implies  standardization 
which  as  a  result  has  produced  a  great  social 
gain  as  regards  celerity  and  efficiency,  and  hence 
a  wonderful  saving  in  the  expenditure  of  labor. 
"What  is  not  competently  standardized  calls  for 
too  much  of  craftsmanlike  skill,  reflection  and 
individual  elaboration,  and  is  therefore  not  avail- 
able for  economical  use  in  the  processes.  Ir- 
regularity, departure  from  standard  measure- 
ments in  any  of  the  measurable  facts,  is  of  itself 
a  fault  in  any  item  that  is  to  find  a  use  in  the 
industrial  process,  for  it  brings  delay,  it  detracts 
from  its  ready  usability  in  the  nicely  adjudged 
process  into  which  it  is  to  go;  and  a  delay  at 
any  point  means  a  more  or  less  far-reaching 
and  intolerable  retardation  of  the  comprehensive 
industrial  process  at  large.  Irregularity  in  prod- 
ucts intended  for  industrial  use  carries  a  penalty 
to  the  nonconforming  producer  which  urges  him 
to  fall  into  line  and  submit  to  the  required 
standardization," 

The  result  is  not  only  the  subjection  of  the 
workman  to  the  standardization  process  of  the 
machine,  but  also  the  elimination  of  the  idio- 
syncrasies and  private  desires  of  the  purchaser, 
the  general  public,  who  are  obliged  to  take  the 
standardized  products  of  the  machine  process. 

This  machine  production,  Veblen  also  points 
out,  leads  to  a  standardization  of  services. 

Thus,  to  quote  still  further: 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  59 

To  make  effective  use  of  the  modern  system  of  com- 
munication in  any  or  all  of  its  ramifications  (streets, 
railways,  steamship  lines,  telephone,  telegraph,  postal 
service,  etc.)  men  are  required  to  adapt  their  needs 
and  their  motions  to  the  exigencies  of  the  process 
whereby  this  civilized  method  of  intercourse  is  carried 
into  effect.  The  service  is  standardized,  and  there- 
fore the  use  of  it  is  standardized  also.  Schedules  of 
time,  place  and  circumstance  rule  throughout.  The 
scheme  of  everyday  life  must  be  arranged  with  a  strict 
regard  to  the  exigencies  of  the  process  whereby  this 
range  of  human  neds  is  served,  if  full  advantage  is 
to  be  taken  of  this  system  of  intercourse,  which  means 
that,  in  so  far,  one's  plans  and  projects  must  be  con- 
ceived and  worked  out  in  terms  of  those  standard 
units  which  the  system  imposes. 

In  addition  to  this  standardization,  what  is 
called  by  Professor  Veblen  "Interstitial  Adjust- 
ment" is  very  marked.  Thus  the  various  fac- 
tors in  the  production  of  a  given  industry  are 
obliged  to  accommodate  themselves  one  to  the 
other,  and  the  more  highly  developed  the  in- 
dustry happens  to  be  the  more  dependent  is  it 
for  its  successful  conduct  upon  the  correlation 
of  these  parts.  Hence,  the  dislocation  of  any  of 
its  sub-processes  in  the  general  scheme  of  ma- 
chine production  tends  to  dislocate  the  entire  sys- 
tem and  causes  a  general  disturbance  in  that 
particular  industry  which,  owing  to  the  close 
relations  between  indutries,  due  again  to  the 
machine  process,  will  spread  outside  of  the 
sphere  of  the  industry  in  question  and  very 
soon  affect  the  whole  social  process.  In  short, 
as  Professor  Veblen  says,  "This  mechanical  con- 
catenation of  industrial  processes  makes  for 
solidarity  in  the  administration  of  any  group  of 
related  industries,  and  more  remotely  it  makes 
for  solidarity  in  the  management  of  the  entire 


60  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

industrial  traffic  of  the  community."  (N.  B. 
This  statement  should  be  carefully  borne  in  mind 
when  the  matter  of  industrial  unionism  is  con- 
sidered.) The  result  of  all  this  organization  and 
concatenation  of  industries  and  correlated  indus- 
tries is  that  industrial  effort  is  directed  towards, 
and  industrial  leadership  is  best  displayed  in  the 
management  of  the  industries  so  as  to  keep  the 
adjustments  of  the  system  as  perfect  as  possible, 
to  maintain  the  running  of  the  entire  process  un- 
disturbed by  defective  working  of  the  inter- 
related parts. 

This  is  the  new  system,  the  peculiar  product 
of  the  present  age,  and  it  is  under  this  new  sys- 
tem that  we  must  look  for  that  revolutionary 
proletariat,  that  nucleus  of  militants,  which  is  to 
supply  the  propulsive  force  of  social  revolution, 
if  it  is  to  be  found  anywhere. 

The  growth  and  development  of  this  machine 
industry,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  constitutes  a  con- 
dition in  the  socialist  and  labor  movement  which 
could  not  have  been  contemplated  even  by  the 
far-seeing  and  erudite  exponents  of  the  Marxian 
idea.  It  is  true  that  the  Communist  Manifesto 
states,  "Owing  to  the  extensive  use  of  machinery 
and  to  division  of  labor,  the  work  of  the  prole- 
tarians has  lost  all  individual  character,  and  con- 
sequently all  charm  for  the  workman.  He  be- 
comes an  appendage  of  the  machine,"  and  refers 
to  the  equalizing  tendency  of  the  machine  system 
upon  wages  and  conditions  of  life.  All  of  which 
is  very  striking  when  the  early  period  at  which 
the  '"Manifesto"  was  written  is  considered.  But 
the  machine  process  as  it  is  today  did  not  and 
never  could  have  entered  the  minds  of  the  writers 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  61 

of  the  "Manifesto."  In  fact,  they  unquestionably 
thought  that  the  whole  system,  as  they  knew  it, 
would  have  been  destroyed  and  the  Socialist  Re- 
public established  long  before  industry  had  at- 
tained the  present  heights  of  development,  and 
the  machine-process  had  come  to  be  the  all  dom- 
inant power  it  now  is. 

After  all,  in  the  earlier  stages  the  Socialist 
propaganda  was  directed  to  the  proletariat  in  the 
small  industry  and  proved  fruitless  to  a  great 
extent  because  the  necessary  stage  of  economic 
development  had  not  been  reached,  and  so  the 
mind  of  the  proletariat  was  not  prepared  to  ac- 
cept it.  Such  Socialism  as  was  propagated  was 
of  the  "natural  rights"  sort,  which  took  as  its 
basis  the  principles  of  the  bourgeois  victory  and 
regarded  Socialism  as  merely  an  extension  of 
these. 

From  this  class  of  propaganda  we  get  the 
demand  that  each  worker  shall  have  the  full 
product  of  his  toil,  a  demand  which  is  really 
ridiculous  in  face  of  the  highly  concentrated  and 
intricate  machinery  of  today,  and  the  ridiculous- 
ness of  which,  in  terms  of  modern  conditions,  is 
abundantly  shown  in  the  standardization  of 
wages  as  the  result  of  union  labor  agitation.  It 
is  evident  that  this  Socialism  is  the  product  of 
the  small  store  and  the  small  shop.  Indeed,  to- 
day it  finds  its  adherents  for  the  most  part  among 
the  small  business  men,  farmers,  and  those  crafts- 
men who  have  so  far  remained  largely  unaffected 
by  the  machine  process. 

The  machine  process  produces  psychological 
effects  upon  those  who  follow  it  which  go  to  the 
making  of  a  distinct  type  and  aid  the  ^orma- 


62  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

tion  of  a  proletariat  distinctively  peculiar  to  the 
present  era.  Irreligion  and  impatience  of  exter- 
nal restraint  have  been  noted  as  peculiarities 
of  the  city  proletariat  which  is  the  special  prod- 
uct of  the  machine  process.  Lafargue  points 
out  that  the  irreligion  of  the  machine  proletariat 
is  largely  due  to  his  being  brought  in  his  daily 
work  into  relation  with  mechanical  processes 
where  cause  and  effect  are  intimately  and  in- 
separably related,  that  the  processes  of  nature, 
so  mysterious  and  inexplicable,  such  as  birth, 
growth,  etc.,  which  meet  the  agriculturist  at 
every  turn,  must  of  necessity  tend  to  produce 
a  mind  more  attuned  to  mysticism  and  religion 
than  is  possible  to  the  experience  of  the  modern 
artisan.  The  essential  psychological  difference 
between  those  engaged  in  business  and  those  who 
come  under  the  influence  of  the  machine  process 
is  thus  stated  by  Veblen  in  the  work  to  which 
reference  has  been  already  made: 

The  ultimate  ground  of  validity  for  the  thinking 
of  the  business  classes  is  the  natural  rights  ground 
of  property, — a  conventional,  anthropomorphic  fact 
having  an  institutional  validity,  rather  than  a  matter- 
of-fact  validity  such  as  can  be  formulated  in  terms  of 
material  cause  and  effect;  while  the  classes  engaged 
in  the  machine  industry  are  habitually  occupied  with 
matters  of  causal  sequence,  which  do  not  lend  them- 
selves to  statement  in  anthropomorphic  terms  of  nat- 
ural rights  and  which  afford  no  guidance  in  ques- 
tions of  institutional  right  and  wrong,  or  of  conven- 
tional reason  and  consequence.  Arguments  which  pro- 
ceed on  material  cause  and  effect  cannot  be  met  with 
arguments  from  conventional  precedent  or  dialectically 
sufficient  reason,  and  conversely. 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  63 

On  the  positive  side  Veblen  is  at  least  as  pro- 
nounced.    He  says : 

The  discipline  of  the  modern  industrial  employments 
is  relatively  free  from  the  basis  of  conventionality,  but 
the  difference  between  the  mechanical  and  the  business 
occupations  is  a  difference  of  degree.  It  is  not  simply 
that  conventional  standards  of  certainty  fall  into  abey- 
ance for  lack  of  exercise,  among  the  industrial  classes. 
The  positive  discipline  exercised  by  their  work  in  good 
part  runs  counter  to  the  habit  of  thinking  in  conven- 
tional, anthropomorphic  terms,  whether  the  convention- 
ality is  that  of  natural  rights  or  any  other.  And  in 
respect  of  this  positive  training  away  from  conven- 
tional norms,  there  is  a  large  divergence  between  the 
several  lines  of  industrial  employment.  In  proportion 
as  a  given  line  of  employment  has  more  of  the  charac- 
ter of  a  machine  process  and  less  of  the  character  of 
handicraft,  the  matter  of  fact  training  which  it  gives 
is  more  pronounced.  In  a  sense  more  intimate  than 
the  inventors  of  the  phrase  seem  to  have  appreciated, 
the  machine  has  become  the  master  of  the  man  who 
works  with  it  and  an  arbiter  in  the  cultural  fortunes 
of  the  community  into  whose  life  it  has  entered. 

It  does  not  appear  that  any  serious  and 
effective  attack  can  be  inade  upon  the  validity 
of  these  conclusions.  In  fact,  we  find  them  ac- 
knowledged freely  in  the  religious  and  conserva- 
tive press,  where  exactly  these  characteristics  are 
made  the  subject  of  attack  and  are  taken  as  il- 
lustrative of  the  degree  to  which  we  have  de- 
generated as  the   result  of  modern  conditions. 

Not  only  archaic  and  surviving  ethical  concep- 
tions are  fast  being  obliterated  by  the  action  of 
the  machine  process,  but  the  very  elementary 
virtues  which  were  regarded  as  primary  and  es- 
sential from  the  bourgeois  point  of  view  are 
coming  to  be  despised.  Hence,  thrift,  an  essen- 
tial small   bourgeois   virtue,   is   disappearing  in 


64  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

view  of  the  machine  process  development.    This 
is  a  direct  result  of  the  mobility  of  the  worker's 
life  under  the  machine  industry.    As  a  laborer  he 
is  part  of  an  intricate  machine  and  must  always 
be  usable.    He  is  in  fact,  as  one  would  say  of  the 
mechanical  parts  of  the  machine  itself,  standard- 
ized and  must  be  available  whenever  required  in 
the  process.     Hence  he  can  have  but  little  im- 
pedimenta,   as    such    would    interfere    with    the 
freedom  of  his  movements.     So  that  thrift  dis- 
appears, not  owing  to  the  wicked  and  wanton  ex- 
travagance of  the  working  class,  as  the  clergy 
and  editors  are  eager  to  declare,  but  by  virtue  of 
the  very  necessities  of  the  machine  process  itself. 
In  connection  with  this  absence  of  thrift  it  may 
be  noted  that  the  migratory  farm  laborers  do  not 
save  money  even  during  their  period  of  employ- 
ment.    Starting  in  Southern  California,  where 
large   numbers   of   them   hibernate,   they   move 
north  with  the  crops.     They  spend  their  wages 
on  the  best  food  obtainable,  first-class  steaks,  and 
good  meals.    They  spend  what  a  country  dweller 
not  accustomed  to  the  machine  process   would 
consider  an  extravagant  amount  upon  physical 
necessities.    But  experience  has  shown  them  that 
this  is  after  all  their  most  economical  way  of 
living.     In  order  to  take  their  place  in  the  ma- 
chine process,  and  to  perform  the  work  which 
the  system  requires  of  them,  they  must  be  in  the 
best  physical  condition  with  all  the  strength  of 
which  they  are  capable.     To  keep  this  condition 
necessitates  the  expenditure  of  what  otherwise 
might  be  considered  an  extravagant  amount  on 
food.      But    there    is    no    alternative — no    ex- 
penditure, no  job. 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  65 

It  is  also  pointed  out  that  the  distinctive  effects 
of  the  machine  process  upon  the  mind  of  those 
engaged  in  it  is  to  lead  to  a  denial  of  the  natural 
rights'  doctrine  which  lies  at  the  bas6  of  the  com- 
mon law  and  the  whole  political  and  juridical 
system  of  the  English  speaking  countries.  The 
workers  engaged  in  the  machine  process  deny  the 
right  of  individual  freedom  to  contract  on  the 
part  of  the  worker  with  the  employer ;  they  deny 
also  the  right  of  the  employer  to  carry  on  his 
own  business  in  his  own  way. 

Here  there  is  also  an  approach  to  that  stand- 
ardization which  is  apparent  in  the  machine  proc^ 
ess.  It  is  very  obvious  that  the  idea  of  in- 
dividual bargaining  is  practically  impossible  un- 
der the  machine  industry  and  that  it  would  tend 
to  interfere  with  the  smooth  working  and  the  cor- 
relation of  the  parts  of  that  industry  which  we 
have  seen  to  be  essential  to  its  satisfactory  con- 
duct. In  fact,  so  far  has  the  machine  process 
acted  upon  the  minds  of  the  parties  on  each  side 
of  it  that  there  is  hardly  any  employer  worth 
considering  in  industry  affected  by  the  machine 
process,  who  does  not  see  the  advantage  of  col- 
lective bargaining.  It  has  advanced  so  far  as  to 
receive  legislative  and  judicial  sanction  in  Great 
Britain  and  those  outlying  portions  of  the  British 
Empire  in  which  the  modern  system  prevails. 
The  Civic  Federation  in  this  country,  a  highly 
influential,  if  unofficial  committee  of  capitalists 
and  trade  unionists,  takes  the  same  attitude.  In 
fact,  a  properly  organized  and  amenable  trade 
union  is  considered  almost  essential  as  part  of 
the  capitalist  equipment.  It  is  obviously  neces- 
sary to  the  maintaining  of  that  adjustment  ("In- 


66  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

terstitial  Adjustment,"  Veblen  calls  it)  which  the 
machine  process  demands.  Hence  the  machine 
process  itself  is  apparently  such  as  to  work  an 
entire  change  in  the  concepts  underlying  bour- 
geois society  and  may  be  regarded  as  a  revolu- 
tionary and  subversive  economic  fact,  like  the 
rise  of  trade  and  the  substitution  of  money — 
rents  for  payment  by  feudal  service  in  the  feudal 
system. 

The  machine  process,  moreover,  tends  to  widen 
the  gulf  between  the  possessing  and  the  revo- 
lutionary classes  and  to  make  the  passage  from 
the  subject  to  the  owning  class  continually  more 
difficult.  In  the  prior  stage  the  evolution  from 
man  to  master  was  usual.  V/here  it  did  not  take 
place  the  man  was  so  frequently  to  be  blamed 
for  lack  of  the  elementary  qualities  of  success 
that  his  failure  was  naturally  imputed  to  him- 
self, and  even  he  felt  that  it  was  largely  his  own 
fault.  The  classes  fitted  together  so  closely  and 
the  level  was  so  well  kept  that  a  young  energetic 
man  was  no  misfit  husband  for  the  daughter  of 
the  master.  In  fact  there  was  no  real  gulf  be- 
tween master  and  servant.  But  the  foundation 
of  the  greater  industry  with  its  machine  process, 
with  its  corporations  and  trusts,  its  absent  stock- 
holders, its  graded  and  disciplined  organization, 
accentuates  markedly  the  fact  of  subject  and 
master,  and  produces,  on  the  other  hand,  feelings 
of  haughtiness  and  pride,  of  arrogance  and  su- 
periority, together  with  a  sense  of  material, 
coupled  with  political  power,  and  on  the  other 
hand  that  recognition  of  subjection  and  hope- 
less endeavor  which  is  the  most  fruitful  imme- 
diate source  of  revolutionary  action. 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  67 

Moreover,  the  proletariat,  or  at  least  that  nu- 
cleus of  it  which  we  have  pointed  out  as  being 
engaged  in  the  machine  process,  actually  does 
tend  to  become  more  and  more  revolutionary, 
that  is,  to  take  up  a  continually  more  iconoclastic 
attitude  to  the  natural  rights  theories.  Veblen 
says,  "The  latest,  maturest  expressions  of  trade 
unionism  are  on  the  whole  the  most  extreme,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  directed  against  the  natural 
rights  of  property  and  pecuniary  contract." 

True  as  this  was  in  1904,  when  the  first  edition 
of  the  work  was  published,  the  last  seven  years 
have  proved  still  more  forcibly  the  accuracy  of 
this  general  expression.  The  trades  unions,  even 
those  which  were  most  conservative  and  yielded 
less  readily  to  the  influence  of  the  machine  proc- 
ess and  which  retained  the  impress  of  the  pre- 
ceding system  longer,  have  begun  to  give  way 
more  and  more  to  the  influence  of  the  machine 
process.  This  shows  that  as  the  old  members 
of  the  unions  pass  away  the  old  mental  attitude 
passes  also,  and  that  the  new  men,  the  young 
who  take  their  places  in  the  unions,  or  who  are 
sufficiently  adventurous  to  form  new  labor  or- 
ganizations, come  into  them  with  concepts  de- 
rived from  the  machine  process  and  are  thus 
more  radical  or  iconoclastic.  They  proclaim  the 
"standardization  of  industry"  as  against  that 
"standardization  of  business"  (Veblen),  which 
is  incorporated  in  the  common  law,  not,  it  is  true, 
in  its  fullness,  because  the  vestiges  of  the  old 
still  remain  and  the  subject  class  has  as  usual 
retained  the  traditions  of  the  former  epoch  to  a 
greater  extent  than  its  masters. 


68  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Each  succeeding  wave  of  unionism  and  of 
working  class  effort,  however,  places  the  work- 
ing class  standard  in  advance  of  its  predecessors 
and  always  in  greater  accord  with  the  operation 
of  the  machine  process  upon  the  working  class 
mind.  Wherever  this  tendency  is  obvious  the 
machine  proletariat  will  be  found,  and  there  will 
be  seen  the  effects  of  the  operation  of  the  machine 
process.  Thus  the  old  system  of  agriculture 
affords  no  psychological  ground  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  revolutionary  class  movement  among 
the  agricultural  laborers.  But  the  conversion  of 
the  old-fashioned  farmhand  into  the  modern  farm 
laborer,  a  cog  in  the  machine  process,  very  soon 
converts  that  apparently  most  hopeless  of  indus- 
trial subjects  into  material  for  organization.  So 
that  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  the 
most  advanced  product  of  the  machine  process 
and  a  form  of  unionism  absolutely  inconceivable 
in  any  state  of  industrial  development  anterior 
to  that  of  a  fully  grown  machine  process,  has 
partially  succeeded  in  organizing  the  migratory 
farm  laborers  and  in  causing  them  to  win  strikes 
and  to  greatly  increase  the  price  of  their  labor. 

It  must  be  remembered  also  in  this  connection, 
that  the  numbers  of  those  organized  are  but  a 
small  proportion  of  those  affected.  The  resources 
of  the  new  organization  referred  to  are  too  slight 
to  enable  them  to  enter  upon  any  greater  field 
of  organization  at  present  than  their  staff  and 
equipment  permit.  Thousands  of  requests  for 
organization  have  come  in  from  the  rural  dis- 
tricts which  could  not  be  acceded  to  as  the  or- 
ganization was  not  prepared  to  enter  upon  the 
task  which  this  extended  scope  necessarily  pre- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  69 

sented.  This  is  evidence  in  itself  of  the  action 
of  the  machine  process  upon  that  part  of  the 
proletariat  which  Veblen  speaks  of  as  unaffected. 
Indeed,  the  same  proletariat  in  Europe  is  un- 
affected simply  because  the  machine  process  in 
agriculture  in  Europe  has  not  attained  the  im- 
portance it  has  achieved  here.  It  may  be  noted 
that  the  machine  process  is  not  at  work  to  any 
extent  in  farming  proper.  The  machine  process 
goes  chiefly  to  handling  the  crop  and  it  is  in  just 
that  particular  work  that  the  industrial  or- 
ganizable  qualities  of  the  new  agricultural  pro- 
letariat are  beginning  to  show  themselves.  In 
other  words,  those  wandering  hordes,  the  despair 
of  politician  and  reformer,  are  being  gradually 
made  into  an  organized  whole  by  virtue  of  noth- 
ing but  the  machine  process  itself  and  its  psycho- 
logical effect  upon  the  units  of  these  hordes. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  other  classes  of 
labor  which  come  under  the  influence  of  the  ma- 
chine process,  and  especially  of  unskilled  labor, 
which,  formerly,  having  its  craft  to  protect,  was 
practically  hopeless  from  the  organization  stand- 
point. The  machine  process,  however,  develops 
the  revolutionary  state  of  mind  even  in  this  pro- 
portion of  the  proletariat,  so  that  the  foreign  un- 
skilled laborers  in  the  machine  process  are  fast 
learning  the  art  of  organization,  as  the  growth 
of  tht  United  Laborers'  Unions  (composed  of 
migratory  unskilled  laborers)  in  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  plainly  shows,  and  as  is 
further  evidenced  by  the  remarkable  continued 
increase  in  numbers  and  influence  of  the  Indus- 
trial Workers  of  the  World.  This  latter  as  has 
been  noted  is  at  once  the  most  revolutionary  of 


70  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

modern  unions,  and  is  composed  almost  entirely 
at  the  present  time  of  elements  which  had  hither- 
to been  considered  unorganizable. 

The  operation  of  the  machine  process  explains 
a  phenomenon,  which  seems  to  find  no  satis- 
factory solution  except  in  terms  of  the  psycho- 
logical effects  of  the  process  in  question.  It  is 
found  that  speaking  generally  the  economically 
better  situated  class  of  workers  is  more  amenable 
to  the  Socialist  propaganda  than  those  less  well 
off.  Thus  according  to  the  analysis  of  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Socialist  Party  published  in  the 
Socialist  Bulletin  for  April,  1909,  it  appears  that 
20  per  cent  are  laborers  and  41  per  cent  crafts- 
men. Of  course  the  laborers  are  economically 
worse  off  than  the  craftsmen  and  might  there- 
fore be  expected  to  be  more  revolutionary  in 
tendency.  Occasionally  the  Socialist  driven  to 
an  explanation  ventures  the  assertion  that  it  is 
just  because  the  craftsmen  are  better  off  that 
they  take  an  interest  in  the  Socialist  movement. 
He  says  that  the  hours  of  the  craftsman  being 
fewer,  his  leisure  greater,  and  his  opportunities 
of  self -improvement  better,  he  becomes  more  in- 
tellectual and  consequently  more  inclined  to  So- 
cialism. This  explanation  has  never  been  satis- 
factory, although  it  appears  to  correspond  fairly 
well  with  the  facts.  For  example,  the  question 
remains  why  should  some  certain  classes  of 
craftsmen  be  more  amenable  than  others  to  So- 
cialism? It  will  be  found  that  the  socialistic 
craftsmen  are  for  by  far  the  most  part  partici- 
pants in  the  machine  industry  and  are  therefore 
under  the  influence  of  the  machine  process,  while, 
as  regards  the  laborers,  there  is  little  doubt  that 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  71 

practically  all  of  them  who  take  part  in  the 
socialist  movement  do  so  by  virtue  of  the  psycho- 
logical effect  of  the  machine  process. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Socialists  regard 
the  industrial  centers  as  their  proper  hunting- 
grounds,  and  as  affording  to  them  the  best  op- 
portunities for  the  development  of  a  strong  revo- 
lutionary movement.  In  fact  it  is  axiomatic  with 
the  Socialists  that  their  propaganda  is  dependent 
upon  industrial  development.  Socialism  requires 
a  high  degree  of  industrial  development,  which, 
of  course,  necessarily  implies  the  machine- 
process.  Under  no  other  conditions  can  a  state 
of  mind  amenable  to  the  Socialist  propaganda  in 
its  modern  form  be  produced. 

In  these  industrial  centers,  however,  very  dis- 
tinct differences  are  to  be  observed  in  the  classes 
of  people  attracted  to  the  Socialist  movement. 
Broadly  speaking,  they  may  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  which  are  denominated  within  the  So- 
cialist ranks  as  proletarian  and  bourgeois,  respect- 
ively. The  latter  are  really  representatives  of 
the  smaller  bourgeoisie  not  under  the  influence 
of  the  machine  process,  and  the  former  are  the 
products  of  the  machine-process,  generally  speak- 
ing. Between  those  two  types  there  is  an  inces- 
sant war  in  the  Socialist  movement  itself,  which 
is  constantly  agitated  by  the  endeavor  of  the  ma- 
chine proletarian  to  obtain  the  upper  hand.  Each 
fight  gives  him  a  better  position,  as  he  is  in 
accord  with  industrial  processes  and  the  growth 
of  the  machine  industry.  There  is  also  to  be 
observed  that  tendency  to  "Interstitial  Adjust- 
ment," which  has  been  noted  by.  Veblen  as  a 
distinct  necessity  of  the  machine  process.     Just 


72  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

as  the  machine  process  requires  a  continual  ad- 
justment of  the  sub-processes  to  meet  its  require- 
ments, and  to  contribute  to  the  economic  result, 
so  the  working  class  endeavors  to  make  its  or- 
ganization follow  the  lines  of  the  nucleus  process 
and  to  bring  about  those  "Interstitial  Adjust- 
ments" between  the  various  elements  of  the  labor 
side  of  the  process,  which  the  masters  are  con- 
tinually making  on  the  capitalist  side. 

Hence  follows  the  dispute  between  the  ad- 
vocates of  craft  unionism  and  what  is  called 
industrial  unionism.  The  chief  charge  of  the 
latter  against  the  former  is  that  the  craft  union- 
ism is  not  suited  to  the  present  stage  of  the  ma- 
chine process,  that  it  is  archaic,  and  should  be 
abandoned.  In  fact,  willy-nilly,  it  is  being  aban- 
doned, and  the  only  reason  which  prevents  its 
more  speedy  abandonment  is  the  natural  ten- 
dency of  those  in  office  to  perpetuate  their  tenure 
and  to  retain  the  emoluments.  Even  in  the  So- 
cialist movement  we  find  the  same  fundamental 
and  essential  distinctions  between  the  types.  In 
speaking  of  the  non-efifectiveness  of  the  Socialist 
movement  to  affect  the  rural  classes  of  Europe, 
Veblen  explains  the  fact  of  the  impermeability 
of  the  peasants  as  follows:  "The  discipline  of 
their  daily  life  leaves  their  spirit  undisturbed  on 
the  plane  of  conventionality  and  anthropo- 
rnorphism  and  the  changes  to  which  they  aspire 
lie  _  within  the  scope  of  the  conventionalities 
which  have  grown  out  of  the  circumstances  of 
their  life  and  which  express  the  habit  of  mind 
enforced  by  these  circumstances."  The  same 
words  might  be  applied  almost  without  change 
to  those  in  the  Socialist  movement  who  are  not 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  73 

subjected  to  the  operations  of  the  machine 
process. 

The  same  characteristics  which  have  made 
Methodism  and  kindred  sects  typical  of  the  small 
bourgeois  class  pervade  their  socialism.  They 
are  idealistic  in  the  long  view,  and  small  and 
sordid  in  their  immediate  actions.  They  yield 
readily  to  and  are  easily  made  the  victims  of 
pietistic  adventurers  who  translate  the  old  theol- 
ogy into  terms  of  a  pseudo-socialism.  They  pos- 
sess in  a  marked  degree  that  surviving  reverence 
for  natural  rights  which  has  been  mentioned 
heretofore,  and  base  their  hypotheses  upon  it. 

The  machine  process,  however,  produces  a  type 
which  tends  ever  further  away  from  this  idealistic 
point  of  view  and  becomes  continually  more  defi- 
nite and  concrete.  This  latter  class  troubles  itself 
less  about  abstractions  and  busies  itself  more  with 
the  creation  of  an  industrial  machine  through 
which  it  can  actually  express  itself,  and  hence 
thus  readily  responds  more  to  economic  than  to 
political  stimulus. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  modern  industrialist 
devotes  more  energy  and  thought  to  the  subject 
of  shop  control  than  to  the  mere  question  of 
wages  and  hours.  It  will  be  noted  that  this  is 
entirely  distinctive  from  what  may  be  called  the 
old-fashioned  proprietary  form  of  socialism. 
According  to  this  latter,  the  "full  product  of  his 
toil"  was  the  objective  of  the  class-conscious 
worker.  But  the  present  industrialist  aims  at  the 
"control  of  the  job,"  in  common  with  his  fellow- 
workers.  It  is  a  very  slight  step  from  this  to  the 
ownership  of  the  job,  to  wit:  the  instruments  of 
labor.     The  objective  may  seem  to  be  the  same 


74  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

in  the  long  run,  but  the  objective  has  always  been 
the  same.  At  every  time  men  have  desired  to 
obtain  the  full  return  of  their  labor.  It  is  the 
method  of  approach  which  differentiates  the 
epochs,  and  the  method  of  job  control  is  a  later 
development,  as  compared  with  expropriation  by 
legal  decree  based  on  a  revolutionary  mandate. 
It  will  be  thus  found  that  the  operation  of  the 
machine  process  is  explanatory  of  much  of  the 
discussion  and  the  strife  within  the  Socialist 
movement. 

There  are  differences,  apparently  irreconcil- 
able, which  can  only  be  solved  by  the  passing  of 
time  and  the  elimination  of  one  or  other  of  the 
combatants.  In  this  event  the  final  triumph  must 
necessarily  rest  with  those  most  closely  associ- 
ated with  the  machine  process,  since  it  is  fast 
becoming  dominant. 

The  socialism  which  is  mere  rebellion  and  an 
expression  of  discontent  with  economic  failure 
is  the  product  of  non-association  with  the  ma- 
chine process.  Its  adherents  are  largely  small 
business  men  who  have  failed  to  secure  a  per- 
manent footing  in  the  competitive  struggle  in 
retail  trade,  or  who  find  themselves,  after  a  suc- 
cessful business  career,  threatened  with  ruin  and 
extinction  by  the  operation  of  the  great  combi- 
nations. Besides  these  are  the  large  numbers  of 
craftsmen  who  still  are  tool-users  and  conse- 
quently still  have  a  basis  for  a  craft  union.  They 
are  in  much  the  same  position  as  the  small  busi- 
ness man. 

Both   of   these    classes   are   without   the   ma- 
chine-process   state   of   mind.      They   are    both ' 
prone   to   the    same   pietistic    weaknesses ;    they 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  75 

are  both  subject  to  emotional  appeals;  they  both 
deal  in  absolutes;  they  both  have  a  tendency  to 
the  same  ridiculous  and  pettifogging  little  re- 
forms, and  they  both  are  the  slaves  of  some  in- 
tangible thing  which  they  call  "Public  Opinion," 
and  bow  down  before  some  equally  intangible 
thing  which  they  call  the  "People."  In  fact,  they 
carry  over  into  the  Socialist  movement  of  today 
the  ante-machine  process  of  mind  of  yesterday. 
This  very  class  still  forms  the  nucleus  of  church 
membership  throughout  the  country. 

The  difference  between  the  city  and  country 
delegations  to  a  Socialist  convention  is  distinct, 
as  distinct  as  the  t^pes  of  leaders  which  repre- 
sent one  or  other.  One  instance  will  illustrate 
the  effect  of  contact  with  the  machine  process. 
A  carpenters'  union  in  a  country  place  in  South- 
ern California  had  volunteered  its  services  free 
of  cost  towards  the  erection  of  a  Methodist 
church  in  a  small  country  place  on  Labor  Day. 
The  story  of  this,  being  told  in  Los  Angeles  to  a 
meeting  of  the  carpenters'  union,  was  received 
with  much  merriment  and  jeering  laughter.  Here 
we  have  two  entirely  different  points  of  view 
from  members  of  unions  in  the  same  craft,  and 
actually  in  the  same  county  organization.  The 
members  of  the  one  were  craft  union  men,  carry- 
ing on  their  business  in  the  old-fashioned  style 
in  a  rural  district.  The  members  of  the  other 
formed  part  of  a  building  trades  organization, 
which  is  an  undeveloped  and  primary  form  of 
industrial  organization,  and  mirrors  to  some  ex- 
tent the  machine  process  in  an  industry  of  which 
carpentering  is  a  sub-process.  Hence,  the  ma- 
chine-process state  of  mmd  naturally  prevails  in 


76  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

the  membership.  It  is  very  clear  that  persons 
holding  such  divergent  views  are  bound  to  clash 
in  the  same  organization,  but  these  views  are 
natural  consequences  of  the  industrial  move- 
ment. 

The  expressions  which  have  done  duty  for  the 
combatants  during  the  last  few  decades — "petit 
bourgeois"  and  "proletarian" — convey  an  ap- 
proximation to  the  underlying  differences,  and 
they  are  by  no  means  exact.  Thus,  the  craft 
union  man  is  a  proletarian  in  the  sense  that  he 
has  only  his  labor  power  to  sell.  Still,  except 
where  he  is  involved  in  the  machine  process,  his 
opinion  is  more  likely  to  coincide  with  that  of 
an  actual  small  bourgeois  than  with  that  of  a 
proletarian  engaged  in  the  machine  process.  It 
all  seems  to  proceed  from  the  process  and  to  be 
independent  of  individual  volition.  Thus,  a  city 
carpenter  engaged  in  the  machine  process,  as  has 
been  pointed  out,  may  go  into  the  country  and 
there  drop  out  of  the  machine  process.  He  will, 
in  the  course  of  time,  adopt  the  point  of  view  of 
the  rural  carpenter.  He  will  remain  interested  in 
the  Socialist  movement  and  even  join  his  country 
local,  but  his  attitude  to  tactics  will  change.  This 
will  be  all  the  more  readily  the  case  if,  owing  to 
the  rural  conditions,  he  is  able  to  take  small  con- 
tracting, to  procure  a  little  property  and  thus  to 
remove  himself  more  and  more  from  the  opera- 
tion of  the  machine  process.  He  will  still  re- 
main a  member  of  the  Socialist  Party;  will  still 
take  part  in  the  Socialist  movement,  but  his  atti- 
tude of  mind  with  regard  to  what  is  involved  in 
the  Socialist  movement  will  differ  much  from 
his  attitude  when  he  comes,  though  only  par- 
tially, in  contact  with  the  machine  orocess. 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  77 

A  very  complete  instance  of  the  effect  of  the 
machine  process  was  shown  in  this  very  trade 
(carpentering)  during  the  recent  strike  at  Gold- 
field.  The  Western  Federation  of  Miners,  an 
industrial  organization,  which  is  formed,  at  least 
partially,  to  correspond  with  the  machine-process 
development,  was  engaged  in  a  strike  against 
mine-owners.  In  the  Western  Federation  were 
carpenters  who  were  employed  about  mines,  were 
members  of  the  Federation,  were  engaged  in  the 
machine  process,  and,  hence,  were  solidly  organ- 
ized with  the  striking  miners.  Besides  these, 
however,  were  carpenters  not  engaged  in  the 
mining  industry  and  who  were  affiliated  with  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor.  These  carpen- 
ters were,  in  great  part,  sub-contractors  and  car- 
ried on  their  work  not  in  connection  with  the 
machine  process.  They  were  antagonistic  to  the 
strike.  In  San  Francisco,  however,  the  carpen- 
ters who  were  members  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  but  were  engaged  in  the  machine 
process,  were  for  the  strike.  Here  an  obvious 
connection  appears.  It  is  quite  possible — certain, 
in  fact — that  many  of  the  Goldfield  American 
Federation  carpenters  called  themselves  Social- 
ists ;  it  is  also  certain  that  many  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco carpenters  also  did  the  same.  The  machine 
process  was,  however,  stronger  than  any  artifi- 
cial bonds,  industrial  or  political. 

Some  years  ago  Richard  Calwer  published  a 
pamphlet  on  the  condition  of  the  German  Social 
Democratic  Party,  which  raised  the  question  of 
the  relations  of  petit  bourgeois  and  proletarian, 
and  was  much  discussed.  He  spoke  of  the  atti- 
tude of  the  petit  bourgeois  as  reactionary,  just  as 


78  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

some  Socialists  are  fond  of  speaking  of  the  atti- 
tude of  certain  groups  in  the  American  move- 
ment as  reactionary.  In  reahty  this  does  not  ap- 
pear to  be  the  case.  What  Calwer  and  many 
advanced  SociaHsts  are  attacking  at  the  present 
day  is  the  old  pre-machine  process  socialism, 
which  has  not  changed,  but  which  time  and  the 
machine  process  have  rendered  inadequate. 

As  I  write  this  I  read  in  the  New  York  Call, 
May  29th,  1911:  "Yet,  as  regards  our  move- 
ment, though  every  day  it  grows  stronger  in 
numbers,  intelligence  and  power,  there  are  many 
in  our  ranks  who  evidently  believe  that  the  So- 
cialist movement  is  gradually  losing  its  character 
as  a  revolutionary  organization  and  becoming  a 
party  of  compromise  and  reform."  Against  this 
the  editor  protests,  though  in  the  estimation  of 
the  writer  he  protests  on  altogether  wrong 
grounds,  and  justifies  his  protest  with  an  archaic 
quotation  which  has  no  connection  whatsoever 
with  the  modern  form  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment, as  it  is  affected  by  the  machine  process, 
this  quotation  being  a  vociferous  demand  for  the 
wealth  of  the  capitalist,  in  the  old-fashioned 
Style,  and  is  to  the  effect  that  the  proletariat  has 
strong  hands  and  will  take  the  bourgeois  prop- 
erty. Here  is  the  old  proprietary  socialism  again 
in  an  even  more  elementary  form  than  usual. 

SOME    POTENTIALITIES    OF    THE    MILITANT 
PROLETARIAT. 

The  machine-process  conditions  which  have 
developed  out  of  bourgeois  society  have  pro- 
duced a  type  differentiated,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
many  vital  particulars  from  the  dominant  hour- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  79 

geois  type.  It  may  also  be  noted  that  the  machine 
process  fact  has  had  its  effect  upon  the  individ- 
uals on  each  side  of  it;  it  has  affected  both  pro- 
letarian and  capitalist.  Thus,  if  the  modern 
proletarian  does  not  view  economic  actualities 
with  the  same  eyes  as  formerly,  and  if  even  the 
Socialist  movement  has  ceased,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, to  repose  complete  confidence  in  its  own 
former  solutions,  the  capitalist  has  by  no  means 
been  immune  from  the  workings  of  the  same 
process.  He,  too,  regards  both  economic  facts 
and  economic  solutions  differently  than  hereto- 
fore. What  formerly  he  cursed  now  he  blesses 
altogether.  In  accordance  with  his  necessities, 
the  schools  and  theologians  have  altered  the  tone 
of  their  teachings,  so  that  competition  which  was 
formerly  designated  the  life  of  trade,  is  now 
treated  in  a  much  less  complimentary  manner, 
and  those  combinations  which  were  so  recently 
denounced  as  pernicious  and  un-American  have 
become,  in  turn,  recognized  as  the  fine  flower  of 
economic  and  social  progress. 

For  example.  Judge  Elbert  H.  Gary,  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Steel  Trust  Investigating 
Committee,  June,  1911,  frankly  advocated  gov- 
ernmental control  of  the  machine  process.  He 
actually  asked  for  a  federal  license  for  the  trusts, 
which  would  in  itself  be  a  protection  against  in- 
terference on  the  part  of  individual  states.  So 
that  the  ramifications  of  the  greater  industry 
spread  ever  more  widely,  and  the  mind  of  the 
capitalist,  formerly  concentrated  upon  a  narrow 
and  specific  portion  of  productive  industry,  moves 
with  the  industry  itself,  growing  more  compre- 


80  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

hensive  as  the  necessities  of  the  economic  and 
industrial  situation  require. 

But,  with  all  these  changes,  the  fundamental 
antagonism  between  the  capitalist  and  the  la- 
borer does  not  become  mitigated.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  grows  in  intensity,  as  the  machine  proc- 
ess organizes  the  laborers  ever  more  closely.  For 
this  organization  at  the  machine  and  in  terms 
of  its  process  implies  in  addition  organization 
for  mutual  assistance  in  the  struggle  for  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  product.  The  more  fully  or- 
ganized the  business  and  the  more  complete  the 
machine-process,  the  greater  the  mutual  antag- 
onism between  the  capitalist  class  and  the  labor- 
ing class.  The  chasm  grows  ever  more  un- 
bridgeable, and  the  militant  portion  of  the  pro- 
letariat is  compelled  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
to  increase  its  militancy.  Thus,  funds  which 
were  formerly  collected  as  insurance  against  sick- 
ness and  to  secure  decent  interment  are  now 
directed  to  actual  industrial  conflict  and  the 
money  chests  of  the  union  tend  more  and  more 
to  become  war  chests. 

This  fact  of  the  laboring  class  organization  and 
its  antagonism  to  the  capitalistic  management  is 
the  one  fact  which  the  capitalist  organizer  can- 
not avoid.  It  is  the  nemesis  which  follows  him. 
All  else  may  be  met  but  "labor,"  which,  after 
all,  is  only  an  abstraction  for  actual  and  flesh 
and  blood  men  and  women.  Even  governments 
may  be  ridiculed.  Thus  Judge  Gary,  while  ask- 
ing for  the  federal  regulation  of  the  steel  trust 
and  the  fixing  of  the  price  of  its  products  by  the 
government,  had  no  backwardness  in  stating  that 
the  steel  manufacturers  intended  to  hold  an  in- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  81 

ternational  conference  for  the  purpose  of  making 
the  steel  trust  world  wide  in  its  operations  and 
"to  prevent  destructive  fluctuations  of  steel 
prices."  But  the  employes  cannot  be  dodged. 
To  make  the  steel  trust  international  and  to  fix 
an  international  price  for  steel  products  may  be 
effective  as  against  the  U.  S.  Government,  but 
it  does  not  touch  the  labor  question,  a  matter 
concerning  which  Judge  Gary,  though  in  other 
matters  so  sturdy,  was  actually  pathetic. 

In  fact,  such  an  extension  of  the  scope  of  the 
steel  trust  and  the  creation  of  an  international 
machine  for  the  fixing  of  prices  and  the  manu- 
facture of  that  staple  article  not  only  consoli- 
dates the  steel  industry,  it  also  consolidates  and 
makes  international  the  labor  in  that  industry^ 
The  antagonism  between  employer  and  employee- 
is  not  diminished  thereby.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  precipitated,  organized,  and  may  be  more  read- 
ily accentuated.  As  the  steel  industry  becomes 
more  effective  on  the  machine-process  side,  it 
equally  becomes  more  effective  on  the  labor  side. 

As  an  illustration,  the  revolutionary  trade 
union  attitude  towards  this  manipulation  of  the 
steel  trust  affairs  may  be  gathered  from  the  fol- 
lowing editorial  from  "Solidarity:" 

The  evidence  that  the  steel  trust  has  not  properly 
reckoned  with  the  revolutionary  union  movement  is 
seen  in  the  trust's  v^^iping  out  craft  union  divisions 
from  among  its  workers.  Having  thrown  away  its 
craft  union  shield  against  the  workers,  the  trust  would 
now  take  up  the  governmental  shield  against  the  middle 
class.  This  is  the  fatalism  forced  upon  the  ruling  class 
by  social  evolution,  and  pointing  unmistakably  to  the 
near  at  hand  doom  of  that  class.  The  trust,  in  the 
course  of  evolution,   having  brought  about  the  condi- 


82  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

tions  for  social  ownership  and  control  of  industry, 
seeks  to  avert  the  inevitable,  and  only  hastens  it.  Every 
move  it  makes — progressive  though  it  may  be  in  con- 
trast with  a  lower  stage  of  economic  development — 
only  shows  more  clearly  its  limitations  of  historical 
development;  and  points  unerringly  to  the  next  phase 
of  social  evolution — industrial  democracy — the  rule  of 
the  people  through  industry.  The  middle  class  has  al- 
ready met  its  doom ;  the  ultra  capitalist  class  is  about 
to  meet  its.  The  working  class  is  organizing  indus- 
trially the  world  over,  to  build  the  structure  of  the  new 
society  within  the  shell  of  the  old.  Judge  Gary's  double 
proposal,  to  fortify  the  trusts  by  national  "governmental 
regulation,"  and  at  the  same  time  to  place  them  on  an 
international  footing,  is  but  paving  the  way  for  the 
international  supremacy  of  the  working  class.  Let 
all  revolutionary  workers  assist  in  this  process  by  agi- 
tation and  organization  of  their  fellow  workers.  (Soli- 
darity, June  10,  1911.) 

So  that  the  hostiHty  of  the  employe  to  the  em- 
ployer does  not  seem  to  have  become  mitigated 
by  such  changes  as  the  growth  and  triumph  of 
the  machine-process  have  effected  in  the  mind  of 
the  opposing  forces.  On  the  contrary,  the  antag- 
onism seems  to  have  deepened  and  widened.  The 
result  was  only  to  be  expected  from  the  elimina- 
tion of  personal  relations  and  the  reduction  of 
the  entire  question  to  one  of  the  ownership  of 
the  tool.  The  early  bourgeois  said  that  it  was 
all  a  matter  of  contract,  so  that  the  laws  and  con- 
stitutions of  today  stand  as  the  witness  of  the 
bourgeois  necessities  of  yesterday.  But  contract 
implies  at  least  consent  and  the  ability  to  make 
contracts,  both  of  which  prerequisites  are  and 
have  always  been  conspicuously  absent  in  the  re- 
lations of  employer  and  employee.  So  that  the 
pretense  of  individual  contract  has  come  to  be 
ignored  by  degrees  and  the  business  agent  makes 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  83 

agreements  for  batches  of  men  in  accordance 
with  a  standardized  scale  of  payment,  while  the 
employer  purchases  the  labor  power  in  batches 
quite  irrespective  of  the  individual  qualities  of 
the  separate  living  receptacles  of  labor-power 
which  go  to  make  up  the  sum  total  of  the  mass 
of  labor-power  required.  Both  sides  much  pre- 
fer this  method.  The  large  employer  approves 
of  collective  bargaining  because  it  is  all  in  the 
direction  of  standardization  and  the  business 
agent  prefers  it  because  it  gives  him  greater  con- 
trol over  the  men  of  the  union  and  at  the  same 
time  allows  him  to  gain  a  certain  amount  of  fame, 
if  nothing  else,  by  the  successful  arrangement  of 
contracts  and  working  agreements.  Now  and 
again  there  is  a  cry  in  favor  of  the  "open  shop," 
which  means  the  abolition  of  collective  bargain- 
ing, but  such  a  demand  rises  for  the  most  part 
from  the  small  business  which  is  not  yet  involved 
in  the  machine-process.  Sometimes,  however,  it 
proceeds  from  the  greater  concerns,  but  is  then 
used  merely  as  an  incident  in  bargaining  in  order 
to  impress  the  business  agent  with  the  necessity 
of  lowering  his  scale  of  demands.  So  far  has 
collective  bargaining  gone  that  the  Civic  Federa- 
tion was  formed  in  this  country,  largely  for  the 
purpose  of  promoting  it,  and  of  bringing  about 
arrangements  between  the  greater  capitalists  and 
the  union  labor  officials  which  would  obviate 
much  of  the  trouble  between  employer  and  em- 
ployee. 

But  this  device,  promising  as  it  appeared,  does 
not  seem  to  proceed  satisfactorily.  Hostility  on 
the  part  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  organized 
workers   pursues   every   effort   at   reconciliation 


84  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

with  the  employers  because,  in  the  very  essence 
of  things,  anything  but  hostiHty  between  the 
owners  of  the  tools  of  production  and  the  work- 
ers is  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible.  Thus, 
the  United  Mine  Workers  have  recently  de- 
manded the  resignation  of  John  Mitchell  from 
the  Civic  Federation,  or  his  expulsion  from  the 
union.  The  latter,  having  the  choice  thus  un- 
compromisingly set  before  him,  abandoned  the 
Civic  Federation.  It  will  be  noted  that  the 
United  Mine  Workers  is  one  of  the  largest  and 
most  important  labor  organizations  in  the  coun- 
try and  that  John  Mitchell  is  very  distinguished 
as  a  labor  leader  who  has  succeeded  in  keeping 
the  enthusiastic  support  of  the  miners,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  gaining  for  a  labor  representative 
in  this  country  much  admiration  and  quite  an 
unusual  amount  of  attention. 

In  spite  of  collective  bargaining  and  confer- 
ences between  labor  leaders  and  capitalists,  the 
hostility  between  the  parties  on  each  side  of  the 
machine  process  really  increases  in  intensity  un- 
til it  approaches  actual  conflict.  Indeed,  only 
now  are  the  forces  of  the  opponents  beginning 
to  come  into  the  field.  All  former  fighting  has 
been  skirmishing,  the  conflict  of  isolated  groups 
who  have  carried  on  their  struggles  apart  from 
the  main  bodies  and  whose  operations  have  but 
slightly-  interfered  with  the  general  process  of 
production  and  distribution. 

In  the  aggregate,  it  may  be  conceded  that  the 
amount  of  economic  loss  due  to  strikes  and  the 
interruption  of  work  by  industrial  disputes  has 
been  very  great.  It  may  also  be  granted  that 
large   numbers   of   employers   have   been   bank- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  85 

rupted  and  that  the  economic  position  of  thou- 
sands of  employees  has  been  destroyed  by  the 
same  means.  But  such  conflicts  do  not  have 
the  effect  of  ehminating  the  combatants.  The 
proletarian  who  is  reduced  to  a  lower  position 
by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  his  strike  has  failed, 
who  is  driven  out,  with  the  probable  loss  of  his 
trade,  and  who  becomes  thereby  an  unskilled 
workman,  is  not  removed  as  a  combatant ;  he  may 
still  find  his  place  in  the  general  fight  which  is 
being  waged  round  the  machine.  He  may  be 
crushed  and  lose  effectiveness  as  an  actual 
fighter,  for  men  who  have  been  badly  beaten, 
whether  as  capitalist  or  workman,  seldom  have 
the  requisite  stamina  remaining  to  constitute 
them  good  fighters  thereafter.  His  children  may 
be  reduced  in  position  also,  but  those  children, 
even  the  girls,  to  an  ever  increasing  extent,  are 
obliged  to  earn  their  living  in  service  to  the 
machine  process,  that  indomitable  modern  fact 
on  each  side  of  which  are  ranged  those  _  un- 
slumbering  and  restless  hates  and  antagonisms 
upon  which  in  reality  depend  the  progress  of 
the  modern  world.  That  beaten  proletarian  is 
still  to  reckon  with,  even  in  the  person  of  his 
children,  so  that  the  conflict  cannot  be  terminated 
by  the  defeat  of  the  proletarian,  at  least  in  any 
species  of  industrial  conflict  with  which  history 
has  made  us  familiar. 

And  what  is  true  of  the  proletarian  is  true 
also  of  the  capitalist.  To  defeat  and  even  to  ruin 
the  small  capitalist  by  industrial  conflict  is  not 
to  weaken,  it  is  actually  to  strengthen  the  cap- 
italist body,  by  removing  a  useless  factor  and 
by,   therefore,   tending  to  concentrate  the  cap- 


86  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

italist  strength.  To  ruin  the  individual  capitaHst 
is  the  aim  of  capitalism  itself.  To  that  end  all 
plans  and  combinations  are  devised,  all  sorts  of 
fraudulent  schemes  are  made,  all  manner  of  sud- 
den attacks  and  intricate  plans  of  campaign  are 
calculated  and  developed.  The  real  process  of 
capitalism  is  toward  the  destruction  of  the  in- 
dividual capitalist  that  thereby  capitalism  may 
be  organized. 

The  Steel  Trust,  in  the  instance  above  quoted, 
is  the  victor  in  an  exterminating  war  carried 
over  a  long  period  of  time  between  coteries  of 
competing  manufacturers.  It  comes  laden  with 
the  accumulated  spoils  of  ruined  steel  manufac- 
turers. It  has  reached  its  goal;  it  is  fully  or- 
ganized. Thereupon,  having  attained  its  climax, 
it  ceases  further  from  ruining  individual  manu- 
facturers. It  calls  upon  the  government  itself 
to  fix  a  price  for  steel;  it  having,  in  the  first 
place,  secured  to  itself  by  virtue  of  the  eco- 
nomic power  it  has  achieved,  possession  of  the 
government.  Even  then  it  hesitates  to  trust 
the  government  of  its  own  creation,  but,  mak- 
ing an  international  agreement,  brings  this  in- 
ternational economic  fact  to  bear  upon  its 
national  government. 

This  international  economic  fact  has  a  greater 
significance  than  the  mere  power  which  it  is 
capable  of  exercising  over  a  national  govern- 
ment. It  must  mirror  itself  to  the  extent  of  its 
potentiality  in  politics ;  and  an  international 
economic  fact  will  be  mirrored  on  no  less  than 
an  international  scale.  Does  this,  then,  point 
to  an  international  state  for  some  purposes,  at 
least,  a  governmental  force  transcending  national 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  87 

lines?  No  less.  And,  as  the  economic  accom- 
plished fact  must  not  be  endangered  by  the  fric- 
tion of  factors  and  ingredients  subordinate  to 
that  fact,  it  also  implies  an  international  police. 
It  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  most  stren- 
uous champion  of  international  peace  is  Andrew 
Carnegie,  one  of  the  most  efficient  instruments  in 
the  creation  of  the  steel  trust.  International 
peace  implies,  in  its  turn,  an  international  police, 
responsible  to  an  international  controlling  power, 
which,  having  possession  of  the  police  power,  is, 
consequently,  a  government.  The  conclusion  is 
unavoidable.  The  dreams  of  internationalism, 
which  have  been  regarded  as  the  most  absurdly 
ridiculous  and  ultra-poetic,  become  the  most  pro- 
saic, and  that  most  unwelcome,  because  unpa- 
triotic, result  is  being  realized  through  this  eco- 
nomic fact  and  its  ramifications,  and  through 
that  alone. 

But,  the  internationalism  impending  does  not 
immediately  bring  that  peace  which  has  been  so 
loudly  proclaimed — it  brings  peace  between  cap- 
italists, because  itself  is  the  result  of  their  in- 
terests becoming  so  unified  and  concentrated  that 
war  grows  impossible,  even  unthinkable.  It 
brings  peace  between  the  proletariats  of  the  va- 
rious countries,  because  the  concentration,  of 
industry  also  tends  to  concentrate  their  interests 
and  to  unify  their  purposes.  It  eliminates 
national  jealousies  and  antagonisms,  tends  to  re- 
duce to  a  minimum  the  inconveniences  caused 
by  diversities  of  language,  dissipates  religious 
disputes  by  the  elimination  of  religion  itself, 
which,  at  icast,  m  its  present  form,  cannot  exist 
concurrently  with  the  machine  process,  and  sub- 


88  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

stitutes  for  all  the  convolutions  and  intricacies 
of  international  politics,  with  its  jealousies  and 
intrigues,  involving  the  proletarian  class  as  a 
subject  class,  the  regularity  and  the  smoothness 
of  the  machine  process. 

As  the  capitalist  functions  on  the  international 
field  and  in  accordance  with  the  development  of 
the  machine  process,  the  proletarian  likewise  so 
functions  in  accordance  with  the  same  facts.  It 
is  curious  to  note  also  that  his  international  ac- 
tion depends  upon  and  is  commensurate  with  the 
development  of  the  machine  process  and  with 
that  alone.  The  development  of  what  might  be 
called  the  international  idea  in  the  proletarian 
movement  is  in  itself  an  interesting  study  in 
the  effect  of  the  machine  process  as  contrasted 
with  a  theoretical  propaganda. 

It  was  obvious  very  early  that  proletarians 
being  subjected  everywhere  to  the  tyranny  of 
capitalism  had  much  in  common,  and  that  it  was, 
therefore,  the  greatest  folly  for  members  of  the 
working  class  to  kill  one  another  in  international 
wars,  which  in  no  way  subserved  their  interests. 
Hence,  one  of  the  very  first  acts  of  the  early 
Socialists,  or  rather  "Communists,"  as  the 
Marxians  at  that  time  called  themselves,  was 
to  form  an  international  group  which  they  called 
the  International  Workingman's  Association. 
This  group  made  much  noise,  and  caused  con- 
siderable perturbation  among  the  more  nervous 
bourgeois  and  those  in  whom  the  glaring  re- 
ports of  the  capitalist  press  produced  emotional 
reactions.  It  was  called  the  Red  International. 
It  numbered  in  its  ranks  many  men  of  inter- 
national reputation  and  had  more  than  its  share 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  89 

of  talent  and  enthusiasm.  It  accomplished 
nothing,  however,  of  any  note.  Towards  the 
last  it  became  a  veritable  cave  of  the  winds, 
where  noisy  and,  frequently,  empty  disputes  on 
academic  subjects  frittered  away  the  time  and 
energy  of  the  members.  Finally,  the  personal 
antagonisms  grew  so  intense  as  to  be  unbearable 
and  the  Red  International  perished  in  the  smoke 
of  its  own  controversies. 

The  sudden  recrudescence  of  the  SociaHst 
movement  in  the  political  form  in  the  early 
eighties  again  caused  a  movement  towards  the 
realization  of  the  international  idea.  Accord- 
ingly, the  international  Socialist  political  con- 
gresses were  constituted.  Painfully«and  with  a 
palpable  effort  towards  respectability,  these  have 
been  gradually  brought  to  assume  a  form  more 
and  more  resembling  the  parliamentary,  until 
now  the  leading  parliamentary  figures  assume 
as  nearly  a  cabinet  ministerial  air  as  possible  and 
the  congresses  grow  more  and  more  like  a 
belated  and  uninteresting  replica  of  an  ordinary 
parliament.  Such  congresses  cannot  inspire 
either  respect  or  faith.  They  are  too  obviously 
exotic;  the  whole  business  seems  calculated  to 
make  good  little  bourgeois  out  of  naughty  little 
proletarians ;  it  is  palpably  artificial  and  insin- 
cere. The  problems  presented  tend  to  grow 
less  and  less  vital  with  each  passing  congress, 
so  that  the  apologists  are  forced  to  find  solace 
in  the  fact  that  nothing  essential  comes  up  for 
discussion,  upon  the  ground  that  nothing  funda- 
mental remains  to  be  discussed,  all  fundamentals 
having  been  very  satisfactorily  settled.  Both 
these    forms   of   the   "international"   are   really 


90  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT  ' 

testimonials  to  the  folly  of  trying  to  make  things. 
Socialism  is  international  in  its  essence;  there- 
fore, argue  the  Socialists,  "let  us  make  an  in- 
ternational," and  they  proceed  to  make  it.  It 
is  the  same  old  utopianism  which  has  been  so 
much  mocked  and  yet  so  steadily  pursued,  the 
same  fatuous  reasoning  which,  beginning  with 
the  postulate  that  socialism  implies  co-operation, 
ends  almost  simultaneously  with  the  hurried  re- 
solve to  create  forthwith  a  co-operative  common- 
wealth. 

The  machine  process  solves,  naturally,  those 
problems  which  seem  insurmountable  and  are 
really  so  to  those  who  essay  to  solve  them, 
either  in  terms  of  a  priorism  or  by  sudden  leaps 
into  idealistic  utopianism.  We  have  seen  only 
in  the  present  month  (June,  1911)  how  the  sail- 
ors of  some  five  nations  have  naturally  and  in- 
deed almost  instinctively  pooled  their  interests, 
and  to  what  slight  extent  frontiers  avail  to  keep 
separate  those  whom  the  machine  process  has 
declared  shall  be  united.  The  Socialists  have 
been  called,  repeatedly,  good  prophets,  but  poor 
performers.  Let  them  take  heart  of  grace ;  they 
will  not  be  called  upon  to  perform.  The  machine 
process  will  do  all  the  performing  for  them. 

It  may  be  seen,  therefore,  that  there  is  no 
escape  from  the  conflict  between  the  possessor 
and  the  user  of  the  machine.  Fate  seems  to  be 
inexorable  on  that  score.  Given  the  machine,  the 
antagonistic  forces  muster  on  each  side  of  it, 
like  Greeks  and  Trojans  contesting  for  the  body 
of  a  hero,  for  the  impelling  purpose  of  the  an- 
tagonism is  the  ownership  of  the  machine.  That 
conflict  cannot  be  escaped.     Partnership  between 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  91 

employer  and  employee  is  impossible,  profit- 
sharing  on  any  scale  worthy  of  the  name  is 
unthinkable,  and  the  instances  where  it  is  sup- 
posedly practiced  are,  in  reality,  ludicrous  in 
the  smallness  of  their  scope  and  the  magnitude 
of  their  pretensions.  State  socialism  or  state 
capitalism,  two  words  for  the  same  thing,  does 
not  in  the  slightest  degree  mitigate  the  fact  of 
the  hostility  of  the  classes;  on  the  other  hand, 
it  merely  tends  to  set  the  employees  of  the  state 
industry  in  revolutionary  antagonism  to  the  gov- 
ernment, as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  the 
French  railways  and  in  many  other  modern  in- 
stances of  a  similar  nature.  Furthermore,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  extension  of  the  machine  process 
into  the  international  realm  effects  nothing  in 
the  direction  of  industrial  peace,  but  merely 
converts  the  whole  world,  in  so  far  as  the  ma- 
chine process  spreads,  into  a  great  industrial 
battle-ground,  so  that  the  industrial  conflict  loses 
all  traces  of  local  character  and  becomes  itself 
international,  resolving  itself  ultimately  into  a 
struggle  for  the  possession  or  the  repression  of 
the  international  police.  This  is  the  result  of 
state  socialism.  Whatever  form  it  may  assume, 
it  converts  a  potentially  revolutionary  proletariat 
into  an  actual  revolutionary  force. 

For  the  present  the  militant  proletarian  cares 
little  about  government  or  politics.  In  spite  of 
his  instructors,  he  is  shy,  and  all  the  lures  of 
the  politicians  have  so  far  failed  to  move  him. 
But,  he  does  care  about  his  hours  and  wages 
and  he  does  regard  with  hostility  the  owner  of 
the  machine  with  which  he  is  compelled  to  work 
and  of  the  proceeds  of  his  proportion  of  his 


92  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

group  work  with  which  he  receives  only  a  frac- 
tion. 

To  deliver  the  machine  into  the  hands  of  what 
is  called  the  state,  is  no  solution  of  the  evil.  The 
capitalists  having  the  economic  and,  conse- 
quently, the  political  power,  will  permit  only  of 
government  ownership  or  control  when  it  is  to 
their  advantage.  We  have  seen  many  instances 
of  that  in  recent  years.  They  will,  as  in  South 
Africa,  not  only  allow,  but  actually  cause  the 
government  to  take  up,  own  and  manage  indus- 
tries which  are  subsidiary  and  useful  to  the  dom- 
inant industry,  control  of  which  the  capitalist 
keeps.  Or,  they  may,  again,  when  it  suits  their 
purpose,  cause  a  sale  of  their  industry  to  the 
community,  taking  bonds  therefor  and  becoming 
investors  instead  of  entrepreneurs.  To  the  pro- 
letarian an  employer  is  still  an  employer,  whether 
he  wear  the  guise  of  the  state,  or  keep  the  top 
hat  and  frock  coat  of  the  Victorian  benefactor 
of  humanity.  But,  to  rise  in  industrial  revolt 
against  the  state  is  to  engage  in  a  revolutionary 
campaign,  with  all  the  risks  belonging  to  such  a 
campaign.  It  might  and  probably  would  be 
visited  with  extraordinary  penalties.  It  is  al- 
ready judged  in  advance.  Governmental  postal 
employes  are  denied  the  privilege  of  the  forma- 
tion of  unions  upon  the  ground  that  they  are 
governmental  employes,  that  their  abstention 
from  employment  by  strike  and  the  like  would 
dislocate  the  whole  community  and  that  they 
are  not  entitled  to  cause  such  discomfort  to 
other  people.  The  governmental  ownership  of 
railroads  brings  similar  problems  in  its  train  and 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  action  of  the  gov- 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  93 

ernment  would  take  the  same  course.  This  gives 
rise  to  a  whole  series  of  complicated  problems, 
such  as  face  the  French  government  with  regard 
to  the  reinstatement  of  the  railroad  men  who 
were  discharged  for  striking ;  it  inflames  the  pop- 
ular mind  against  the  government,  and  causes 
the  hatred  of  the  working  class  to  be  directed 
from  the  individual  employer  to  the  govern- 
mental employer.  It  thus  concentrates  the  pro- 
letarian wrath  upon  one  object  which  is  corre- 
spondingly the  more  easily  overcome.  The 
result  is,  however,  achieved  not  by  a  vote  imply- 
ing a  change  of  ministry  in  the  approved  liberal 
fashion,  but  by  the  industrial  victory  of  the  pro- 
letariat, thus  giving  it  the  economic  power  which 
thereafter  receives  political  recognition.  This 
is  a  reversal  of  the  generally  accepted  social 
democratic  doctrine,  which  first  predicates  polit- 
ical victory,  and  then  a  new  organization  of  in- 
dustry in  terms  of  the  political  victory,  an  idea 
which  has  provoked  the  contemptuous  criticism 
of  practical  capitalistic  entrepreneurs  who,  what- 
ever may  be  their  defects,  are  at  least  informed 
as  to  the  methods  of  conducting  an  industry. 

That  economic  progress,  whether  it  take  the 
form  of  increasing  combinations,  with  the  nec- 
essary and  unavoidable  governmental  control,  or 
the  frank  ownership  of  the  machine  by  the  state 
or  municipality,  does  not  imply  any  diminution 
of  proletarian  militancy,  is  quite  obvious.  There 
does  not,  moreover,  appear  to  be  any  means  of 
overcoming  this  militancy ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
would  seem  destined  to  grow  to  its  culmination. 

The  question  thereupon  arises  whether  such 
a  proletarian  movement  could  be  reasonably  ex- 


94  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

pected  io  meet  with  success.  We  know,  historic- 
ally, that  servile  movements,  as  they  have  hith- 
erto appeared,  have  not  been  successful;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  that  tragic  failure  has  marked  the 
efforts  of  the  working  class  to  deliver  itself  from 
the  oppression  of  those  who  have  exploited  it. 
As  we  have  seen,  however,  the  present  condi- 
tions are  markedly  different  in  important  re- 
spects from  those  which  have  gone  before,  and 
have  produced  a  type  differing  from  its  prede- 
cessors not  only  in  kind,  but  in  opportunity. 

The  proletarian  cannot  be  eliminated.  No 
method  has  yet  been  found  which  will  allow  of 
the  operation  of  machinery  and  the  production 
of  goods  without  the  employment  of  human 
energy.  Moreover,  no  way  has  been  discovered 
to  prevent  the  organization  of  workers  around 
the  instrument  of  production.  On  the  contrary, 
given  the  machine,  organization  around  that  ma- 
chine becomes  imperative;  it  is  practically  auto- 
matic and  cannot  be  avoided.  There  is  no  way 
either  erf  teaching  or  of  compelling  the  proleta- 
rian not  to  organize. 

Again,  the  proletarian,  albeit  part  of  the  ma- 
chinery, from  the  capitalist  point  of  view  and, 
notwithstanding  the  use  of  the  terms  "hands" 
and  "labor"  as  abstract  expressions,  to  connote 
his  position  from  the  capitalist  standpoint,  is  no 
abstraction.  He  is  a  human  being  possessing 
brain,  even  as  an  employer,  and  amenable  to 
the  cultural  effects  of  the  economic  fact,  as  we 
have  seen,  so  that  the  almost  instinctive  organ- 
ization round  the  machine  becomes  developed  in 
the  course  of  the  progress  of  the  machine  in- 
dustry into  conscious  organization.    Thus  arises 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETALIAT  95 

what  may  be  termed  an  organization  intelligence 
which  is  as  well  able  to  grasp  the  mechanism  and 
the  extent  of  the  machine  process  as  are  the 
capitalists  themselves. 

This   development  grows   ever  more   rapidly, 
so  that  the  proleteriat  of  today,  at  least  in  the 
persons  of  its  most  active  members,  who  may 
be  called  the  thinking  apparatus  of  his  organiza- 
tion, is  gaining  a  breadth  of  view  commensurate 
with   the   scope  of   the   machine  process  itself. 
Anyone  who  has  watched  the  growth  of  the  la- 
bor movement  for  a  long  period  of  years  cannot 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  superior  mental  grasp 
of  the  new  industrial  unionist  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  old  craft  unionist.     The  tone  even 
of  the  craft  journals,  for  the  most  part  edited 
by  those  who  have  not  outgrown  the  obsolete 
point  of  view,  is  dull  and  comparatively  unin- 
teresting.    It   seems   to  echo  the  voice  of  the 
workman  in  a  period  anterior  to  the  machine 
process  and  is  obviously  the  note  of  a  less  pro- 
gressive and  worse  informed  type.     Naturally, 
however,  the  ordinary  man  in  the  ranks  of  the 
unionists  does  not  possess  any  conspicuous  su- 
periority to  the  ordinary  dividend  drawer.    They 
are   each   most   closely   interested   in   the   same 
thing,  how  much  each  can  get,  the  one  in  the 
shape  of  dividends,  the  other  in  working  as  little 
time  for  as  much  money  as  possible.     And  just 
as  the  officers  and  industrial  managers  of   the 
dividend  consumers  are  driven  by  the  demands 
of  their  clients  to  the  exploitation  of  industry, 
so  the  representatives  of  the  wage  workers  are 
on  their  part  compelled  incessantly  to  seek  for 
their  clients   shorter  hours  and  higher  pay,  in 


96  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

fact,  as  far  as  possible,  an  ever-increasing  share 
of  the  product  of  the  machine.  Thus,  the  im- 
possibihty  of  proletarian  elimination  implies  of 
necessity  the  continuance  of  the  proletarian 
struggle. 

Not  only  is  this  the  case,  but  the  victory  must, 
in  the  long  run,  rest  with  the  proletarian.  For 
the  laborers,  being  men,  continually  demand 
more  and  possess  the  human  insatiability  in  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  which  means,  as  far  as 
history  can  be  relied  upon,  the  pursuit  of  material 
ends.  There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  limitation 
to  the  possibilities  of  capitalistic  accumulation, 
however  distant.  Capitalism  reaches  its  climax, 
the  point  beyond  which  it  ceases  to  make  gains, 
then  begin  to  recede  and,  finally,  succumbs  to 
the  attacks  of  the  younger  and  more  vigorous 
element,  which  has  been  produced  by  itself,  and 
which  is  destined  to  destroy  it.  If  this  off- 
spring of  capitalism  cannot  avail  to  destroy  and 
reconstruct,  the  system  still  perishes,  as  has  hap- 
pened in  anterior  systems.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  in  none  of  the  preceding 
systems  has  a  type  been  produced  in  any  way 
comparable  with  the  modern  machine  process 
proletarian  type,  either  in  revolutionary  mental 
constitution,  generated  and  fostered  by  the  sys- 
tem itself,  or  in  revolutionary  possibilities  pro- 
ceeding from  and  dependent  upon  the  system. 

The  whole  capitalist  process  itself  is  based 
upon  the  organized  discipline  and  co-ordination 
of  the  labor-force  applied  to  the  machine.  The 
very  development  of  the  machine  process  by  its 
intricacies  and  convolutions  makes  that  prole- 
tarian discipline  ever  more  necessary.    To  break 


THE    MILITANT    PROLETARIAT  97 

the  discipline  is  to  break  the  operation  of  the 
machine  process,  and  that  is  to  disturb  the  whole 
mechanism  upon  which  the  capitalist  depends 
for  his  returns.  This  fact  working  upon  the 
mind  of  the  proletarian  has  produced  the  modern 
phenomenon  of  industrial  unionism  and  the  gen- 
eral strike,  both  of  which  are  designed  for  the 
express  purpose  of  interfering  with  the  machine 
process  in  the  interest  of  the  associated  laborers. 
Again,  the  very  complications  of  the  modern 
machine  render  it  more  easily  the  prey  of  an 
attacking  force.  A  simple  tool  broken  is  easily 
repaired;  a  single  machine  put  out  of  gear  may 
likewise  be  soon  made  effective  again  without 
seriously  disturbing  the  routine  of  the  shop.  It 
is  quite  ornerwise,  however,  with  the  exceedingly 
complex  modern  machinery  which  depends  upon 
the  harmonious  working  of  hundreds  or  thou- 
sands of  interdependent  parts  the  dislocation  of 
any  one  of  which  interrupts,  of  necessity,  the 
working  of  the  machine.  To  give  an  instance : 
it  was  discovered  in  Austria  that  the  entire  pas- 
senger service  of  a  railway  might  be  seriously 
disturbed  by  an  organized  strict  following  of  the 
rules  by  the  ticket  clerks.  They  were  told  to 
strictly  scrutinize  all  tickets  issued.  By  precon- 
certed arrangement  to  read  every  ticket  issued, 
they  practically  put  the  entire  train  service  out 
of  gear.  This  vulnerability  of  the  machine  proc- 
ess to  united  proletarian  action  has  given  rise 
in  its  turn  to  the  very  recent  phenomenon  of 
"Sabotage,"  a  form  of  labor  war,  of  which  we 
shall,  no  doubt,  hear  much  more  in  the  near 
future. 


98  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

For  many  reasons,  therefore,  the  potentialities 
for  successful  revolt  of  the  modern  proletariat 
are  incomparably  greater  than  those  of  a  sub- 
ject class  in  any  prior  period  of  history.  When 
it  is  borne  in  mind  also  that  the  economic  facts 
find  their  reflex  in  political  action,  and  that  the 
modern  state  may  easily,  as  we  have  seen,  find 
itself  subject  to  proletarian  revolutionary  ac- 
tivity, he  would  be  very  bold  who  would  proph- 
esy the  same  fate  for  the  proletarian  as  has  be- 
fallen his  revolutionary  predecessors. 


Ill 

WHAT  IS  A  UNION? 

The  argument  of  the  average  trade  unionist 
in  support  of  his  organization  runs  something 
hke  this :  "My  craft  is  my  capital ;  if  the  cap- 
italist has  the  right  to  protect  his  money  capital, 
I  have  the  right  to  protect  my  capital;  that  is, 
my  craft.  My  craft  is  just  as  much  my  prop- 
erty as  the  capitalist's  machinery  is  his  prop- 
erty and  should  be  protected  equally  with  the 
machinery  of  the  capitalist."  Addressed  to  the 
ordinary  man  in  the  street,  and  couched  in  the 
language  which  church,  school  and  forum  have 
made  comprehensible  by  the  multitude,  it  is  quite 
a  telling  apology  for  the  right  of  combination, 
the  purposes  of  trade  defense,  and  has,  no  doubt, 
in  its  time  performed  marvels  in  winning  con- 
verts to  the  side  of  trade  unionism. 

It  is  so  flattering.  It  informs  the  working 
class  that  its  members  have  capital,  a  statement 
false  on  the  face  of  it ;  again,  it  misleads  the 
working  class  by  the  false  premise  that  its  mem- 
bers have  rights.  The  fallacy  underlying  both 
false  statements  is  that  a  member  of  the  working 
class  is  an  actual  member  of  modern  society 
with  an  interest  in  the  state,  and  fully  equipped 
with  all  the  panoply  of  modern  citizenship,  and 
a  stake  in  the  community. 

99 


100  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

The  futility  of  such  an  argument  will  dawn 
later  upon  the  mind  of  the  convert  to  trade 
unionism.  He  will  find  that  a  craft  is  a  form 
of  "capital"  which  cannot  readily  be  invested. 
Also,  that  he  cannot  place  that  form  of  "cap- 
ital" in  the  safe  deposit  box  and  wait  until  there 
is  a  demand  for  it.  The  painful  discovery  will 
be  made  also,  that  if  his  craft  is  not  being  ex- 
ercised, neither  is  he,  the  proprietor  of  the  craft, 
and  that  long  abstention  from  activity  threatens 
not  only  the  trade  but  the  proprietor  of  it  with 
extinction.  But  the  trade  is  the  means  of  life, 
it  is  the  instrument  by  which  the  worker  se- 
cures himself  in  the  hurly-burly  which  we  call 
organized  society.  The  insurance  of  one's  trade 
is  an  insurance  of  the  means  of  life.  In  a  very 
real  sense  the  trade  or  craft  becomes  a  property. 
All,  therefore,  who  have  the  same  trade  or  craft 
are  interested  in  the  preservation  of  that  prop- 
erty. The  raising  of  the  position  of  the  trade 
implies  material  benefit  to  the  owners  of 
the  trade,  just  as  the  increase  in  price  of  any 
commodity  tends  to  the  benefit  of  those  who  do 
possess  that  commodity  and  not  to  the  benefit 
of  those  who  do  not  possess  that  property. 

We  find  this  to  be  the  prevailing  view  of  the 
craft  among  all  unionists.  The  justification  of 
the  union  lies  in  the  preservation  of  the  craft. 
It  is  the  moving  cause  for  the  institution  of 
unions  and  the  determining  factor  in  all  union 
disputes.  The  maintenance  of  the  property 
which  the  craft  represents  is  the  essential  reason 
of  the  formation  of  the  union  in  the  first  place 
and  it  is  the  object  kept  in  view  by  business 
agents  and  by  trade  union  officials  in  all  con- 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  101 

troversies  with  employers,  who  naturally  wish  to 
depress  as  far  as  possible  the  price  of  the  com- 
modity which  they  purchase. 

Shylock's  defense,  "You  do  take  my  life  when 
you  do  take  the  means  whereby  I  live,"  is  the 
stock  argument  of  the  unionist.  The  means  of 
the  Jew  was  his  supply  of  ready  cash  which  he 
put  out  to  interest  in  the  market,  the  returns  on 
which  constituted  his  livelihood.  The  trade 
which  the  craftsman  follows  is  his  property  on 
which  he  must  get  his  returns.  If  the  trade  is 
taken  away  the  means  of  life  in  terms  of  that 
trade  are  gone.  The  worker  is  deprived  of  his 
property;  the  quality  of  his  labor  which  enabled 
him  to  make  a  union  disappears,  he  has  no  spe- 
cial commodity  to  offer  for  sale,  such  labor 
power  as  he  has  for  sale  is  ordinary  labor  power 
possessing  no  distinguishing  marks  which  allow 
of  the  placing  upon  it  of  a  special  price ;  he  be- 
comes an  unskilled  laborer,  an  ordinary  human 
being  in  place  of  the  owner  of  a  specific  prop- 
erty capable  of  being  raised  in  price  by  organ- 
ization and  limitation  of  the  market. 

Herein  lies  a  very  important  distinction.  As 
a  skilled  laborer  possessing  the  commodity  of 
skilled  labor  and  able  to  preserve  or  to  enhance 
the  price  of  that  commodity  by  contraction  and 
limitation  of  the  market,  he  may  be  able  to  im- 
prove the  position  of  the  possessors  of  that  com- 
modity, but  that  is  the  limit  of  his  powers,  even 
of  his  desires.  As  an  owner,  he  naturally  cares 
only  to  increase  the  value  of  his  own  wares; 
with  that  instinct  of  self-preservation  which 
leads  one  to  consider  only  himself  in  times  of 
strife,    his    attention    is    riveted    upon   his   owtf 


aNfVFRS!TY  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


102  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

craft  and  the  maintenance  of  that  craft.  As  a 
result,  we  may  see  an  actual  improvement  in  the 
position  of  members  of  a  given  craft  without 
any  improvement  in  the  position  of  labor  as  a 
whole.  In  fact,  that  is  precisely  what  we  do  see. 
Trades  unions  may  increase  in  power  and  influ- 
ence, may  have  full  treasuries,  may  keep  up  the 
price  of  labor  in  their  own  sphere,  and  outside 
that  sphere  the  mass  of  laborers  may  still  remain 
in  the  same  unfortunate  position  and  the  general 
standard  be  no  whit  raised- 

The  first  unions  were  mutual  benefit  societies 
and  were  intended  to  perform  for  their  members 
much  the  same  services  as  the  friendly  societies 
do  today.  They  had  the  same  inconsequential 
and  ridiculous  ritual  and  passwords,  the  mystic 
grips,  and  emblems  and  mysteries  of  signs  and 
countersigns.  They  were  intended  to  insure  the 
members  in  times  of  sickness  and  to  provide  de- 
cent burial,  functions  which  are  still  exercised 
by  many  of  the  trade  societies. 

But  the  association  of  members  of  the  same 
trade,  naturally,  inevitably,  indeed,  led  to  the 
consideration  of  the  economics  of  the  craft  it- 
self, and  to  action  for  the  benefit  of  the  craft. 

At  this  stage  the  insurance  features  of  trade 
unionism  tended  to  recede  and  aggressiveness 
on  behalf  of  the  craft  became  more  and  more 
conspicuous.  The  difiference  between  the  mili- 
tant unions  who  were  constantly  pressing  their 
demands  at  the  point  of  production  in  the  shop 
and  the  old  conservative  mutual  protective  as- 
sociations became  more  and  more  obvious.  The 
latter  were  regarded  with  approval  by  the  em- 
ployers and  received  the  benediction  of  society. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  103 

The  former  were  anathema  and  courts  and  legis- 
latures leagued  together  to  prevent  their  devel- 
opment. 

But  the  unions  developed  because  the  form 
of  society  in  which  they  found  themselves  was 
peculiarly  adapted  to  their  development.  They 
came  into  being  in  terms  of  the  individualistic 
conceptions  of  an  individualistic  age  and  based 
their  demands  philosophically  upon  the  same 
ground  as  the  basic  law  of  the  land  regarding 
property  rights.  They  claimed  their  craft  as  a 
property ;  indeed,  they  claimed  it  as  capital ; 
they  insisted  upon  their  rights  to  receive  as  much 
for  their  commodity  as  they  were  able  to  obtain 
by  dickering  in  the  market;  they  made  their 
slogan  "a.  fair  day's  work  for  a  fair  day's  wage," 
frankly  conceded  the  fact  of  a  labor  market  and 
offered  their  commodity  for  sale  in  that  market. 
But  they  took  no  higher  ground  than  that. 

Even  in  an  age  when  "rights"  was  the  catch- 
word of  the  time,  when  the  echoes  of  the  old 
bourgeois  revolution  were  still  heard  in  all  de- 
partments of  public  life  and  legislature  and  law 
courts  were  noisy  with  the  babble  of  "rights" 
the  unions  took  no  higher  ground  than  the  "rights 
of  property."  They  did  not  even  take  the  ab- 
surd but  high  sounding  "human  rights"  of  the 
humanitarians,  they  claimed  nothing  for  them- 
selves as  Man,  the  only  claim  was  in  prosecution 
of  their  demands  for  their  property  rights.  The 
fact  that  they  could  do  nothing  else  is  not  per- 
tinent here,  neither  is  the  further  fact  that  by 
virtue  of  these  essential  primary  claims  they 
raised  the  position  of  labor  from  one  of  status, 
as  servant,  to  one  of  contract,  as  between  pos- 


104  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

sessors  of  property.  That  they  were  compelled 
to  do  this  latter  is  evident,  for,  in  spite  of  the 
declarations  of  freedom  of  contract  of  the  bour- 
geois revolution,  the  relation  of  employer  and 
employee  was  regarded  as  one  of  master  and 
servant  and  the  first  attempts  to  regulate  wages 
on  the  side  of  the  servant  were  considered  as 
subversive  of  all  civil  rule  and  particularly  blas- 
phemous and  disturbing  to  all  religion  and  the 
proper  order  of  things. 

It  must  be  insisted  that  the  trade  union  move- 
ment originated  not  as  a  movement  of  working 
men,  as  working  men,  for  the  preservation  of 
the  working  class  as  such  and  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  proletarian,  but  as  an  association 
of  the  possessors  of  certain  specific  property  for 
the  benefit  of  that  property  and  the  owners  of 
that  property. 

In  fact,  the  trade  unionists  took  little  heed  of 
the  human  as  contrasted  with  the  property  owner 
in  their  struggles.  Even  their  own  lives  they 
have  considered  as  inferior  to  their  property 
rights.  This  is  obvious  from  a  history  of  the 
organization  of  those  who  spend  their  lives  in 
dangerous  occupations  and  whose  life  and  limb 
are  risked  in  the  pursuit  of  their  daily  bread. 
We  have  had  many  strikes  against  lowering 
of  wages,  many  strikes  for  an  increase  of  wages, 
for  the  right  to  organize,  for  the  right  to  boy- 
cott, for  every  movement  which  tends  to  increase 
the  value  of  the  specific  craft  property  and  to 
make  the  control  of  that  property  more  easy  and 
more  efifective.  But,  how  many  strikes,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  been  launched  against  condi- 
tions of  labor  which  imperil  the  life  and  limb  of 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  105 

the  laborer?  Futile  appeals  to  the  legislatures 
with  all  the  risk  of  adverse  decisions  in  the 
Courts,  risks  which  have  nearly  always  become 
realities,  have  been  the  methods  chosen  by  the 
unionists  to  meet  the  intolerable  conditions  im- 
posed by  employers  upon  laborers.  Compare  the 
maundering  ineffectiveness  in  matters  of  life  and 
limb  with  the  militancy,  the  self-denial,  the  en- 
durance and  the  actual  heroism  shown  by  trade 
unionists  in  defense  of  their  property,  when  they 
have  been  battling  on  behalf  of  wages  and  hours, 
and  the  specific  returns  upon  their  invested  ''cap- 
ital," to  wit,  their  craft. 

There  can  be  little  question  that  the  property 
question  has  dominated  the  entire  trade  union 
mind. 

The  unionist  has  looked  at  the  problem,  not 
as  a  human,  but  as  a  property  problem,  and  so 
has  been  a  true  son  of  the  capitalistic  and  in- 
dividualistic age.  He  has  never  risen  above  or 
beyond  the  conceptions  of  the  times ;  he  has 
been  a  trader,  merely,  with  a  trader's  mind,  not 
the  mind  even  of  a  larger  trader.  No  light  has 
beaten  upon  his  brain  because  his  mind  has  been 
concentrated  upon  the  immediate  returns  for  the 
investment  of  that  craft  which  he  so  pompously 
has  called  his  "capital."  The  cultural  effects  of 
his  organizations  have  been  negligible ;  he  has 
shown  little  tendency  to  pursue  other  than  the 
most  banal  material  ends.  With  all  his  great 
organizations  the  real  upsurge  of  mankind,  the 
force  and  the  dignity  of  the  human  movement, 
have  not,  except  on  rare  and  striking  occasions, 
manifested  themselves  through  him.  It  is  the 
misfortune  of  t-he  trade  unionist  that  he  has  had 


106  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

to  operate  in  terms  of  his  property  and  to  dis- 
play all  the  disturbing  symptoms  of  the  small 
trader,  who  also  agonizes  in  defense  of  his  prop- 
erty. 

VANISHING    PROPERTY 

Security  of  property  is  impossible,  for  prop- 
erty destroys  itself.  The  whole  bourgeois  revo- 
lution is  made  in  terms  of  property ;  the  very 
basis  of  the  Republic,  as  of  all  modern  states, 
consists  in  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty. In  fact  in  its  last  analysis  the  vaunted 
rights  of  man  may  be  ultimately  resolved  into 
rights  of  property.  The  inviolability  of  property 
is  the  fundamental  basis,  and  as  the  New  York 
Court  of  Appeals  recently  said,  "The  right  of 
property  rests  not  upon  philosophical  or  scientific 
speculations,  nor  yet  upon  the  dictates  of  natural 
justice."  The  rights  of  property  transcend  the 
rights  of  man;  indeed,  "Rights  of  property"  is 
the  proper  translation  of  "rights  of  man." 

The  development  of  rights  of  man  into  rights 
of  property  has  reached  such  a  point  that  rights 
of  property  alone  survive,  and  as  the  Court 
above  gravely  states  at  another  place  in  the  same 
opinion  without  any  apparent  idea  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  its  own  stupid  gravity,  "Under  our 
form  of  government  Courts  must  regard  all  eco- 
nomic, philosophical  and  moral  theories,  however 
attractive  and  desirable  they  may  be,  as  subor- 
dinate to  the  primary  question  whether  they  can 
be  moulded  into  statutes  without  infringing  upon 
the  letter  or  spirit  of  our  written  constitutions." 
The  admission  is  almost  naive  in  its  innocent 
simplicity.    Say  the  wise  ones,  in  effect,  our  con- 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  107 

stitutions  rest  primarily  upon  rights  of  property, 
we  know  nothing  and  care  less  about  rights  of 
man,  we  stand  by  the  written  constitutions  which 
are  unmistakably  the  exponents  of  rights  of 
property,  and  if  you  desire  to  interfere  with 
those,  you  cannot  do  so  except  by  upsetting  the 
constitution  and  the  organic  law  of  the  present 
system."  It  is  quite  true,  all  of  it ;  the  bourgeois 
intends  to  go  out,  as  he  came  in,  fighting  for 
rights  of  property. 

We  know  very  well,  however,  that  the  eco- 
nomic system  of  which  the  rights  of  property  is 
the  expression  is  a  confiscatory  system.  By  vir- 
tue of  economic  development  itself  rights  of 
property  are  rendered  nugatory  and  the  whole 
matter  resolves  itself  with  a  question  of  rights  of 
stronger  and  bigger  property.  Against  this  tend- 
ency all  legal  and  constitutional  guarantees  are 
no  bulwark.  On  the  other  hand,  the  constitu- 
tional declarations  are  made  the  very  instruments 
by  which  small  property  is  confiscated.  It  is  no 
benefit  to  say  that  the  constitution  guarantees 
rights  of  property,  for  the  constitution,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  merely  guarantees  the  right  of  the 
economically  strong  to  dispossess  the  econom- 
ically feeble,  or  rather  establishes  the  title  of  the 
strong  after  he  has  already  demolished  the  weak. 

There  is  nothing  more  evident  than  the  growth 
of  great  property  at  the  expense  of  little  prop- 
erty, for  the  cry  of  the  small  dispossessed  is  the 
most  notable  social  phenomenon  of  our  time. 

The  small  property  has  practically  gone ;  all 
legal  and  constitutional  provisions  for  its  main- 
tenance notwithstanding.  The  economic  result 
accomplished    receives    the    benediction    of    the 


108  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Courts,  and  the  emblazoned  standard  of  "Rights 
of  property"  waves  triumphantly  over  a  field 
strewn  with  the  corpses  of  former  property 
owners. 

The  craftsman,  therefore,  who  considers  his 
craft  as  property  must  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  his  craft  property  follows  the  same  course 
as  all  other  property  and  becomes  subordinated 
to  the  greater  force  and,  indeed,  destroyed  by  it. 

The  father  apprentices  his  son  to  a  trade,  tell- 
ing him  that  in  the  possession  of  a  trade  he  has 
more  than  money.  "You  may  lose  your  money ; 
but  never  your  trade,"  says  the  father,  deceiving 
himself  and  his  son  thereby.  Trades  vanisK  sud- 
denly before  new  inventions  and  the  consolida- 
tion of  industry,  just  as  the  property  of  the  small 
middle  class  disappears  in  face  of  the  same  mani- 
festations of  industrial  progress.  But  just  as  the 
possessor  of  small  property  congratulates  him- 
self upon  that  which  marks  him  oflf  from  the 
propertyless  generality,  so  does  the  possessor  of 
a  craft  flatter  himself  that  he  is  superior  to  the 
"unskilled  man."  He  belongs  to  another  class, 
he  occupies  a  more  exalted  plane ;  he  is  an  "aris- 
tocrat of  labor,"  so  that  he  forms  his  unions, 
locks  and  double-locks  the  door  to  the  union ; 
limits  apprenticeship ;  takes  every  precaution 
against  an  invasion  of  his  craft  and  then  sits 
down  in  comparative  security  of  possession, 
trusting  in  his  superior  position  to  save  himself 
and  his  family  in  the  midst  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  capitalistic  system. 

Suddenly,  however,  a  new  development  of  tech- 
nique, the  discovery  of  a  new  process,  a  new 
combination  of  industrial   forces  and  the  craft 


WHAT   IS   A   UNION?  109 

which  was  to  provide  our  craftsman  with  the 
means  of  existence  in  perpetuity  becomes  obso- 
lete, an  anachronism,  and  with  it  the  c4-aftsman. 
Thereupon  also  the  union  which  he  made  to  pro- 
tect him  in  the  possession  of  that  craft  property 
also  collapses,  for  if  the  craft  disappears,  it  is 
clear  that  the  union  must  disappear  with  it.  The 
craftsman  is  bereft  of  all  that  constitutes  prop- 
erty, and  of  the  organization  upon  which  he  relied 
as  a  defender  of  that  which  can  no  longer  be  de- 
fended, because  it  no  longer  exists.  He  is 
stripped  of  everything  that  differentiated  him 
from  the  mass  of  workers.  He  has  no  longer  the 
force  of  organization,  aggressive  and  protective, 
aggressive  as  a  weapon  with  which  he  might  ex-  , 
tort  terms  from  the  opposing  force  at  the  point 
of  production,  protective  in  that  by  its  means 
he  was  able  to  limit  the  market  and  to  artificially 
increase  the  price  of  his  wares.  With  the  loss 
of  his  craft,  too,  go  all  the  material  advantages 
which  he  possessed  over  the  despised  members 
of  the  working  class  who  had  no  craft  and  who, 
therefore,  had  no  basis  for  an  exclusive  organiza- 
tion. He  is  stripped  of  his  property  as  effec- 
tively as  any  landed  proprietor  of  France  by  de- 
cree. He  is  bankrupt  of  his  title  of  "aristocrat" 
and  falls  perforce  into  the  ranks  of  undifferen- 
tiated and  uncategorized  laboring  humanity. 

There  is,  then,  no  more  permanence  in  craft 
property  than  in  any  other  form  of  property 
under  the  present  economic  conditions  with  their 
continual  growth  and  change,  and  the  craft  form 
of  organization  becomes  feeble  and  ineffective 
with  the  passing  of  time. 


110  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

This  ineffectiveness  results  not  merely  from 
the  fact  that  the  craft  unionism  form  of  organ- 
ization is  unsatisfactory  and  incompetent  to  meet 
the  aggressions  of  the  employers,  but  from  the 
fundamental  and  essential  fact  that  the  economic 
basis  of  the  craft  union  has  been  shaken  and  the 
structure  built  on  a  supposedly  solid  foundation 
has  collapsed  with  the  foundation  upon  which  it 
rested. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  that  the 
weakness  of  the  trade  union  movement  is  not 
merely  a  weakness  of  organization.  It  proceeds 
from  the  essential  weakness  of  the  economic 
basis  of  the  craft.  The  position  of  the  craft 
unionist  is  in  this  respect  identical  with  that  of 
the  small  bourgeois,  who  pivots  his  political 
philosophy  also  in  terms  of  an  ineffectual  and 
transitory  property. 

There  is  therefore  a  curiously  complete  simi- 
larity in  their  political  viewpoint,  as  well  as  in 
their  method  of  approach  in  the  consideration  of 
social  problems.  It  is  no  more  than  the  reflex 
of  the  old  individualism  which  persists.  The  at- 
tack of  the  greater  capitalism,  whether  directed 
against  the  small  trader  or  the  craft  unionist,  is 
met  by  appeals  to  ethical  sentiment,  by  stubborn 
resistance,  usually  with  obsolete  weapons,  and 
frequently  by  stupid  and  absolutely  valueless  re- 
criminations. All  of  which  manifestations 
proceed  from  the  insecurity  of  the  economic  por- 
tion of  each  of  these  elements,  small  business 
and  the  craft  union. 

It  is  true  that  the  persistence  of  certain  classes 
of  hand  labor  and  even  their  more  complete  de- 
velopment may  afford  a  basis  for  the  persistence 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  Ill 

of  craft  organization  among  a  limited  and  com- 
paratively insignificant  portion  of  the  working 
class.  For  example,  in  the  molding  trade,  when 
the  increased  use  of  machinery  also  necessitated 
a  certain  increase  in  the  numbers  of  hand  labor- 
ers incident  to  the  growth  of  trade,  there  was 
even  necessitated  an  extraordinary  degree  of  skill 
in  that  particular  work  due  to  the  extension  of 
molders'  products  to  fields  which  were  formerly 
occupied  by  forgings  or  other  process  work.  It 
is  true,  also,  in  all  probability,  that  the  above 
consequences  sprang  from  a  scientific  develop- 
ment in  which  the  machines  were  not  the  pre- 
dominant factor.  But  to  lay  any  stress  upon 
such  a  circumstance  as  showing  the  persistence 
of  craft  labor  is  misleading  in  the  extreme  and 
not  in  accordance  with  the  facts. 

The  whole  tendency  of  modern  industry  has 
been  away  from  the  skill  of  the  individual  and 
in  the  direction  of  merging  individual  skill  in  a 
group  product.  Not  only  so,  but  the  tendency 
has  been  markedly  towards  the  elimination  of 
personal  individual  skill  in  itself.  Standardiza- 
tion, which  is  a  practical  necessity  in  view  of  the 
modern  markets,  means  nothing  short  of  the  an- 
nihilation of  individual  skill  except  in  the  initial 
concept  and  its  materialization  in  the  original 
model. 

Skill,  regarded  as  property,  rests  on  a  very 
slender  basis.  Its  supply  is  looked  for  less  and 
less  in  the  masses  of  the  working  people. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  teaching  of  mechanical 
arts  in  schools  specially  devoted  to  that  purpose, 
and  the  education  of  an  increasing  number  in  the 
universities  in  the  theory  and  application  of  me- 


112  THE  MILITANT  ^PROLETARIAT 

chanics,  mark  a  tendency  for  skill  and  initiative 
to  leave  the  ranks  of  the  proletariat  and  to  be- 
come the  property  of  those  who  may  be  denomi- 
nated the  officers  of  the  industrial  army.  So  far 
has  this  gone  that  the  saving  of  industrial  effort 
and  the  conservation  of  industrial  energy  is  be- 
coming almost  a  profession  in  itself. 

We  have  recently  read  of  various  devices  re- 
sulting from  experiments  in  the  saving  of  waste 
labor  in  industrial  effort.  These  are  the  results 
of  observation  and  experiment  among  those  not 
actually  engaged  in  the  process  of  industrial  pro- 
duction; but  their  results  upon  those  so  engaged 
are  well  worth  at  least  a  passing  notice.  They 
tend  to  still  further  eliminate  any  advantage 
which  particular  skill  or  even  marked  agility  may 
possess.  When  the  movements  are  numbered  and 
when  it  is  made  an  essential  of  the  opportunity 
to  labor  that  the  force  employed  upon  a  specific 
task  should  carry  out  a  specified  number  of  actual 
physical  movements  according  to  a  schedule,  that, 
in  fact,  work  should  resolve  itself  into  a  method- 
ical drill  under  the  eye  of  an  overseer,  all  in- 
dividuality is  of  course  obliterated.  And  with 
the  individuality  goes  the  property.  The  posses- 
sion of  particular  skill  becomes  more  of  a  nui- 
sance in  the  ordinary  process  than  an  advantage 
and  any  tendency  to  individuality  would  be  as 
embarrassing  to  the  conduct  of  a  well  managed 
workshop  as  would  be  the  display  of  such  un- 
welcome qualities  in  a  private  soldier. 

So  by  the  very  tendency  of  economic  develop- 
ment the  pitiful  little  property  of  the  craft  union 
man  is  swept  away. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  113 

The  tendency  of  the  machine  and  the  progres- 
sive organization  of  labor  to  annihilate  the  prop- 
erty of  the  trade  unionist  is  of  necessity  recog- 
nized by  those  members  of  the  unions  who  pay 
any  heed  to  the  effects  of  the  present  system 
upon  this  organization. 

The  remedy  suggested  is  that  the  machine  may 
be  controlled  by  the  union,  and  that  the  craft  may 
be  preserved  round  the  machine.  In  short,  the 
purpose  is  to  organize  the  men  engaged  in  work 
on  the  machine  in  terms  of  the  craft  and  to  en- 
deavor to  preserve  the  vestiges  of  craft  property 
by  means  of  the  machine.  But  property  to  be 
of  value  must  be  acquired,  at  least,  at  first.  That 
which  all  can  possess  is  by  no  means  property. 
In  fact  the  very  essence  of  property  lies  in  its 
exclusiveness,  and  it  is  obvious  that  the  machine 
industry  does  not  render  the  maintenance  of  any 
such  property  at  all  probable  nor  even  possible. 

Machine  industry  in  its  essence  consists  of 
the  repetition  of  monotonous  movements  in  terms 
of  the  machine.  The  motions  of  the  machine  are 
controlling  and  the  individual  is  made  subordi- 
nate to  the  machine  movement.  It  is  very  clear 
that  such  motions  are  easily  learned  in  compari- 
son with  those  of  individual  handicraft  and  that 
property  in  a  trade  of  this  description  rests  upon 
a  very  slight  and  unstable  basis. 

The  result  is  shown  in  the  almost  practical  abo- 
lition of  the  apprentice  system  which  formed  a 
fairly  complete  defense  against  the  invasion  of  a 
trade  by  the  unskilled  labor  element  on  the  out- 
side. 

A  machine-craft  implies  a  self-wrecking  con- 
tradiction.    This  fact  is  very  clearly  apparent  in 


114  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Strikes  when  the  machine  is  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  unskilled  men  who  constitute  the  effective 
scab  force  upon  which  the  employer  relies  at 
such  times.  There  is  no  use  to  endeavor  to  dis- 
guise the  fact  that  given  a  few  weeks'  instruction 
the  scabs  are  well  able  to  take  care  of  the  rna- 
chines  and  that  if  at  the  conclusion  of  the  strike 
they  are  allowed  to  work  side  by  side  with  the 
union  men  they  become  eligible  members  of  the 
union  and  are  received  as  such.  This  has  hap- 
pened too  often  to  be  denied. 

If  the  craft  is  to  be  regarded  as  property  which 
dift'erentiates  its  possessors  from  the  general 
mass  of  the  working  class  how  slight  is  that 
property !  It  is  as  though  it  were  not.  In  fact, 
it  would  be  better  for  the  members  of  the  craft 
who  rely  upon  it,  if  it  did  not  exist,  for  then  it 
would  cease  to  constitute  a  barrier  as  now  be- 
tween them  and  the  rest  of  their  fellows. 

The  property  of  the  craftsman  in  his  craft  is 
therefore,  a  vanishing  property.  Reliance  upon 
it  is  out  of  the  question;  and  pride  in  it  as  af- 
fording a  means  of  differentiating  its  possessors 
from  the  mass  of  their  fellows  is  little  better  than 
an  absurdity.  It  is,  however,  upon  this  property 
notion  that  the  whole  fabric  of  craft  unionism 
depends. 

REVOLUTIONARY   UNIONISM 

When  the  working  class  abandons  the  property 
notion;  in  other  words,  when  economic  condi- 
tions have  so  far  reflected  themselves  in  the 
minds  of  the  workers  that  they  recognize  the 
property  notion  as  no  longer  tenable,  a  complete 
change  of  attitude  towards  society  occurs. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  115 

Property  disappearing,  Man  leaps  to  the  front 
again  and  the  craftsman  faces  the  problem  in 
terms  of  Man.  He  does  not  arrive  at  such  a 
place  in  his  mental  development  nevertheless  un- 
til conditions  have  actually  put  him  there.  Once 
there,  however,  he  finds  his  only  way  to  security 
through  an  attack  upon  the  structure  of  society 
which  has  deprived  him  of  his  property  or  of  any 
chance  to  secure  property.  He  can  only  make 
this  attack  by  assaulting  the  enemy  where  he 
meets  him,  namely,  at  the  point  of  production  in 
the  shop,  for  it  is  there  that  the  contact  is  and 
that  the  issue  must  be  fought  out. 

The  fight  in  the  shop  for  the  product  is  the 
determinative  fight  of  the  future.  Where  the 
workman  wins  in  the  shop,  improves  his  eco- 
nomic position,  develops  his  fighting  capacity  and 
builds  up  his  organization  every  step  taken  by 
him  is  a  step  towards  ultimate  victory.  He 
treads  the  upward  path.  There  is  no  need  to 
speak  of  the  political  phase  of  the  matter  here, 
as  that  receives  consideration  in  the  next  chap- 
ter, but  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  economic 
victory  is  the  essential ;  without  it  the  political 
reflex  is  no  reflex  of  a  class  necessarily  victori- 
ous, but  may  simply  be  the  inefifective  protest  of 
an  economically  incapable  and  losing  class.  To 
tall  in  politics  to  redress  the  economic  balance  is 
a  useless  attempt  at  a  physical  impossibility.  The 
first  essential  is  victory  in  the  shop,  and  such 
victory  as  we  have  seen  cannot  be  made  in  terms 
of  craft  unionism  with  its  inseparable  small 
property  notion. 

The  fight  in  the  shop  raises  the  fundamental 
question  of  the  so-called  contract  of  employment,. 


116  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

upon  which  depends  the  whole  mass  of  legal  and 
legislative  decisions  and  enactments  proclaiming 
the  various  phases  of  that  contract  and  inter- 
preting it  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  employing 
class.  The  elimination  of  the  property  notion 
destroys  also  the  notion  of  contract,  for  without 
property  neither  party  has  anything  about  which 
to  contract. 

The  idea  of  contract  disappearing,  there  remain 
without  any  further  illusion  or  concealment  two 
contending  classes,  each  of  them  striving  for  pos- 
session of  the  product.  Let  this  once  appear  to 
the  mind  of  the  worker  and  his  point  of  view 
changes  immediately.  No  longer  does  he  regard 
himself  as  an  individual  bargaining  with  another 
individual  bound  by  certain  legal  concepts  and 
swaddled  in  preconceived  limitations  as  to  what 
constitutes  his  position  relative  to  the  other  indi- 
vidual. He  sees  himself  on  the  contrary  as  a 
member  of  a  group,  which  group  is  engaged  in  a 
struggle  for  the  possession  of  certain  products, 
which  are  the  materialization  of  the  life-energy 
of  himself  and  the  other  members  of  the  group. 
The  machinery  and  equipment  on  which  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  look  as  the  property  of  the 
other  contracting  party  becomes  in  his  eyes  the 
materialization  of  the  life-energy  of  other  groups 
of  workers  like  himself,  which  has  found  its  way 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  the  individual  or 
the  group  with  whom  he  is  battling  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  product.  The  fight  then  assumes 
the  aspect  of  a  struggle  not  only  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  product,  but  in  addition  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  tools  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy, 
which  tools  are,  as  we  have  said  above,  in  their 
turn  the  product  of  a  working  group. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  117 

This  point  of  view  cannot  be  taught  philo- 
sophically. No  amount  of  instruction  will  avail 
to  raise  a  question  so  apparently  abstract  and 
implying  a  knowledge  of  the  working  of  his- 
torical forces  as  well  as  a  grasp  of  the  economic 
situation  into  a  practical  question  deliberately 
conceived  and  pursued  to  victory.  Only  prac- 
tical experience  can  achieve  this  result.  The 
mental  structure  of  the  proletarian  is  shaped  in 
accordance  with  the  actual  environment  in  which 
he  is,  the  unassailable  and  implacable  facts  of 
which  penetrate  his  brain  and  shape  his  impulses. 

The  property  notion  is  not  easily  abandoned 
for  it  implies  a  promise  of  personal  growth  and 
of  developing  importance  which  cannot  be  read- 
ily overlooked,  but  which  are  on  the  other  hand 
exceedingly  fascinating.  To  rise  above  one's  sta- 
tion in  Hfe,  to  obtain  that  which  appears  to  be 
wealth  in  comparison  with  one's  evident  existent 
poverty,  to  become  independent  of  "the  chances 
and  changes  of  this  mortal  life"  at  least  as  far 
as  that  important  economic  side  is  concerned,  has 
been  the  ambition  of  every  ambitious  lad  who 
has  entered  a  trade.  It  is  an  ambition  also  which 
has  received  the  blessed  sanction  of  social  ap- 
proval and  which  points  a  way  to  dizzy  heights 
of  accomplishment.  Is  not  history  full  of  the 
stories  of  the  young  artisans  who  have  gone 
forth  with  their  craft  as  their  sword  like  mod- 
ern knights  errant  and  have  carved  a  path  to 
fame,  fortune  and  independence?  The  whole 
tradition  of  a  century  in  poetry  and  fiction,  in 
ethical  teaching  and  scholastic  training  has  filled 
the  young  man  of  the  artisan  class  with  the  de- 
sire to  go  and  do  all  these  things.    It  is  with  pain 


118  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

and  difficulty,  with  the  utmost  regret  and  a  Hnger- 
ing  and  reluctant  dissatisfaction  that  he  surren- 
ders the  hope  of  conquering  fate  and  a  hostile 
environment  and  becoming  a  small  edition  of 
the  Superman. 

Just  as  with  the  small  trader,  so  is  it  with  the 
artisan.  The  small  "capital"  which  was  to  func- 
tion as  the  Aladdin  lamp  and  bring  Genii  to  aid 
them  in  their  fight,  to  open  glorious  palaces  for 
them  and  to  place  at  their  disposal  riches  which 
seemed  to  them  incalculable  proves  to  be  no 
"capital"  at  all,  but  a  most  elusive  possession 
destined  perhaps  in  the  long  run  to  cause  them 
more  heartache  than  joy. 

Small  trader  and  artisan  are  both  subject  to  the 
same  economic  law,  they  both  occupy  a  precari- 
ous foothold,  every  day  sees  numbers  of  their 
class  precipitated  into  the  abyss  of  proletarianism 
or  common  labor,  and  every  day  they  find  their 
hold  loosening  and  precipitation  into  the  abyss 
ever  more  likely.  The  process  of  development 
brings  them  closer  to  the  dispossessed,  their  in- 
terests become  more  closely  involved  with  those 
who  have  lost  hold  or  have  never  had  it  and  they 
begin  to  look  at  their  economic  problems  rather 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  mass  of  the  craftless 
and  their  own  probable  position  in  that  mass  of 
craftless  than  from  their  position  as  craftsmen, 
destined  to  permanent  superiority  over  their  fel- 
lows. 

The  same  thing  is  true  also,  it  may  be  paren- 
thetically observed,  of  the  small  tradesmen  who 
are  dependent  for  their  living  upon  the  custom 
of  the  working  class.  They  discover  that  their 
interests  are  more  closely  bound  up  with  those  of 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  119 

the  working  class  than  with  their  own  class,  that 
consequently  in  increasing  numbers  they  tend  to 
show  their  preference  for  the  working  class  point 
of  view  by  voting  the  Socialist  ticket  at  election. 
When  the  proletarian  attitude  of  mind  is  once 
attained  the  revolutionary  attitude  is  adopted  as 
a  matter  of  course  for  the  proletarian  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  revolutionary.  The  proletarian  is 
a  revolutionist  of  necessity,  simply  because  he  is 
a  proletarian.  Hence  those  who  adopt  the  prole- 
tarian point  of  view  are,  as  we  have  seen,  neces- 
sarily revolutionary.  This  revolutionary  ten- 
dency thereupon  makes  itself  felt  in  the  struggle 
in  the  shop,  or,  as  it  grows  endeavors  to  find  a 
means  of  expression  in  that  struggle.  But  such 
a  means  of  expression  cannot  be  found  in  the 
old  craft  union.  That  truth  was  recognized  quite 
early  in  the  revolutionary  movement.  Socialists 
who  had  early  caught  the  proletarian  idea  and 
were  correspondingly  eager  to  try  conclusions 
with  the  capitalistic  enemy,  found  in  the  pure 
and  simple  trade  union  their  greatest  stumbling 
block.  The  craft  union  was  obviously  of  no 
assistance  to  them  in  their  struggle  with  the  dom- 
inant capitalism.  The  tendency  of  the  craft 
unions  to  negotiate  agreements  and  contracts  with 
the  employers,  the  constant  reiteration  of  the  stu- 
pid lie  that  there  is  an  identity  of  interest  be- 
tween employer  and  employed  and  the  actual  sup- 
port of  capitalistic  interests  in  political  matters 
by  the  craft  unions  roused  the  revolutionary  por- 
tion of  the  working  class  to  anger  which  in  its 
turn  provoked  recriminations  from  these  in  the 
leadership  of  the  craft  unions  so  that  the  war 
between  the  Socialists  and  the  pure  and  simple, 
i.  e.,  alleged  non-political    trade    unionists,    in- 


120  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

creased  in  intensity  from  year  to  year  and  formed 
the  basis  of  a  widely  spread,  bitter  and  exceed- 
ingly vituperative  controversy. 

The  result  of  this  essential  difference  between 
the  point  of  view  of  the  average  craft  unionism 
and  that  of  the  revolutionary  socialist  was  that 
in  many  instances  the  latter  ceased  to  lay  any 
stress  upon  unionism  and  in  many  cases  even 
denounced  it  as  unnecessary  and  of  no  real  value 
to  the  proletariat.  This  still  further  added  to 
the  tumult  and  the  confusion  and  the  non-politi- 
cal unionists  responded  to  the  attacks  of  the 
political  proletarians  with  the  charge  that  the 
latter  were  opposed  to  organized  labor  and  paid 
no  attention  to  the  economic  necessities  of  the 
working  class.  In  this  charge  there  was  for  a 
considerable  period  more  than  a  grain  of  truth, 
for  the  Socialists  being  wrapped  up  in  the  con- 
templation of  an  ultimate  ideal  tended  to  be- 
come more  and  more  abstract  and  remote  from 
the  actual  fight  of  the  proletarian. 

The  truth  at  last  dawned  upon  these  latter  that 
the  unions  were  a  necessity  and  that  no  parlia- 
mentary action  could  take  the  place  of  the  eco- 
nomic fight  at  the  point  of  production.  Still  this 
discovery  in  itself  was  not  sufficient,  for  a  con- 
siderable body  in  the  Socialist  movement  there- 
upon endeavored  to  make  terms  with  the  pure 
and  simple  craft  union  movement  without  any 
apparent  understanding  that  the  two  movements 
were  contradictory  and  could  not  exist  side  by 
side  for  any  length  of  time. 

Economic  progress,  however,  as  above  briefly 
described,  was  busy  upon  the  minds  of  the  craft 
unionists,   and   just  in  proportion   as  the   craft 


WHAT   IS  A  UNION?  121 

property  disintegrated  did  they  become  revolu- 
tionary, and  a  totally  different  aspect  of  the 
struggle  between  employ-er  and  employed  began 
to  engross  their  attention. 

The  struggle  began  to  take  on  a  new  form. 
The  property  of  the  employer  in  the  tools  began 
to  be  challenged  and  there  arose  a  claim  for 
possession  of  the  tools  on  the  part  of  the  workers 
which  has  so  far  practically  declared  itself  in  the 
new  tactic  known  as  Sabotage.  This  consists  in 
the  partial  crippling  of  plants  and  in  interfer- 
ence with  the  process  of  production  by  tampering 
with  that  factor  in  production,  the  absolute  title 
to  which  was  granted  by  former  unionists  to  be 
in  the  capitahst  class.  Now  that  title  is  denied; 
and  though  the  Courts  may  enforce  the  title  of 
the  capitalist  in  his  constant  capital,  his  tools  and 
machinery,  it  is  obvious  that  the  Court  decree  is 
of  no  avail  as  against  the  practical  and  wide- 
spread interference  with  the  capitalist's  quiet  pos- 
session, which  would  be  manifested  in  any  organ- 
ized Sabotage  movement. 

The  intricacy  of  the  factors  of  production  and 
the  general  tendency  towards  consolidation  in 
mechanical  processes  have  tended  to  destroy  the 
property  of  the  craftsman ;  on  the  other  hand  to 
considerable  extent  the  property  of  the  capitalist 
is  jeopardized.  This  property  becomes  more 
liable  to  attack  by  the  workers  and  more  vulner- 
able at  their  hands.  The  conduct  of  great  indus- 
trial enterprises,  the  successful  carrying  on  of 
work  in  coal  mines  and  in  great  factories  where 
the  entire  business  is  dependent  upon  a  source 
of  power,  where  the  cost  of  production  is  calcu- 
lated to  a  nicety  and  where  delay  or  interruption 


122  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

or  the  non-co-ordination  of  inter-dependent  parts 
of  machinery  impHes  not  only  an  immediate 
money  loss  but  tends  to  the  annihilation  of  the 
business  itself,  if  continually  repeated,  places  the 
safety  of  the  capitalist  property  and  the  making 
of  capitalist  profits  more  and  more  in  the  hands 
of  the  working  class. 

What  prevents  the  practice  of  Sabotage  upon  a 
large  scale?  Nothing  but  the  surviving  notion  of 
contract ;  nothing  but  the  persistence  of  the  no- 
tion that  the  tools  and  machinery  are  the  property 
of  the  employing  capitalist,  the  survival  of  the 
old  contractual  and  rights  of  property  idea  which 
the  process  of  economic  development  is  fast 
eliminating  from  the  mind  of  the  worker.  From 
the  idea  of  Sabotage  or  interference  with  the 
property  of  the  employer  for  a  specific  immediate 
purpose,  to  the  actual  custody  of  the  machinery 
in  pursuit  of  a  revolutionary  policy  is  not  a  very 
long  step ;  it  is,  moreover,  a  very  natural  one,  and 
then  what  becomes  of  the  employer?  He  there- 
upon is  shown  to  be  what  he  really  is,  an  incu- 
bus, who  can  be  abolished  not  only  with  impu- 
nity, but  with  actual  advantage.  There  is  little 
doubt  of  the  growth  of  the  practice  of  Sabotage 
in  Europe  and  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  it 
will  make  its  appearance  here  also,  and  will  ap- 
peal to  increasing  numbers  of  workmen  as  the 
conflict  between  employer  and  employee  grows 
more  intense. 

Sabotage,  of  course,  has  no  justification  from 
the  point  of  view  of  contract.  If  the  labor  rela- 
tion is  a  contractual  relation,  and  the  title  of  the 
employer  to  tools  and  instruments  of  labor  is 
conceded   and   if   it  is   also   conceded   that  the 


WHAT  IS  A  UNION?  123 

worker  has  property  in  his  craft  then  Sabotage 
must  of  necessity  be  justly  subject  to  the  repro- 
bation which  is  bestowed  upon  it  by  the  respect- 
able. But  if  the  revokitionary  point  of  view  is 
taken  and  the  property  of  the  employer  as  well 
as  the  craft  property  of  the  employee  are  put  out 
of  sight  as  untenable,  if  it  is  admitted  that  the 
contract  of  employment  is  in  reality  employment 
under  duress,  then  a  totally  different  conception 
of  things  arises  in  consequence  of  this  new  point 
of  view. 

Sabotage  appears  as  a  disagreeable  incident  in 
a  revolutionary  campaign,  unjustifiable  under 
conditions  which  exclude  the  revolutionary  no- 
tion, but  perfectly  justifiable  in  terms  of  the  rev- 
olution. A  similar  case  is  the  cutting  off  the 
tails  of  cows  which  has  been  prevalent  in  some 
parts  of  Ireland  as  a  protest  against  landlord 
aggressions,  and  to  prevent  interference  with  the 
return  of  the  peasant  to  the  soil.  It  may  be  noted 
in  passing  that  the  attacks  upon  this  Irish  form 
of  sabotage  are  made  upon  the  ground  of  the 
destruction  of  property  which  causes  more  indig- 
nation among  the  bourgeois  than  the  suffering  of 
the  animals. 

Sabotage  does  not,  however,  of  necessity  imply 
an  active  interference  with  the  machinery  of  pro- 
duction, nor  such  manifestations  as  might  come 
under  the  gen&ral  head  of  malicious  mischief 
according  to  the  Code.  It  may  take  the  form 
of  passive  resistance  and  may  go  no  further  than 
the  deliberate  delaying  of  work  by  exaggerated 
observance  of  rules  actually  made  by  the  man- 
agement of  the  business  and  necessary  in  their 
broad  interpretation  of  its    successful    conduct. 


124  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Thus  at  the  time  of  writing  there  are  at  Trieste 
three  thousand  railway  men  who  are  using  the 
system  of  strict  apphcation  of  the  rules  of  the 
service  with  the  result  that  a  daily  loss  estimated 
at  three  hundred  thousand  francs  is  inflicted  by 
this  insidious  and  almost  intangible  method  of 
attack.  The  results  of  this  demonstration  are 
here  described  in  the  following  words : 

No  less  than  3,000  persons  are  applying  this  system 
at  Trieste,  and  inflict  a  daily  loss  of  300,000  francs  on 
the  state  and  capitalists.  The  results  are  already  felt, 
especially  in  the  port  of  Trieste,  where  the  unloaded 
goods  are  piled  up,  as  there  is  no  more  place  in  the 
docks.  Such  a  disorder  and  obstruction  reigns,  that 
carts  and  vans  cannot  reach  the  quays.  At  the  rail- 
way station  at  Trieste  is  the  sarhe  condition;  the  lines 
are  occupied  by  goods-trains  which  cannot  start  be- 
cause the  officials  declare  that,  according  to  the  rules, 
those  trains  are  overloaded  and  composed  of  bad  roll- 
ing stock.  More  than  400  railway  trucks  have  already 
been  refused  for  this  reason  by  the  officials.  Pas- 
senger trains  are  delayed  and  cannot  enter  the  stations. 
The  post  also  works  with  the  utmost  scrupulous  slow- 
ness. The  postoffices  are  besieged  by  large  crowds  of 
merchants  who  have  to  wait  while  the  officials  are  deal- 
ing with  letters  and  parcels  according  to  all  the  rules. 
Complaints  of  the  public  have  no  effect.  The  ambulant 
postmen,  who  have  to  transfer  the  mailbags  to  the 
trains,  refuse  to  accept  any  mailbags  from  postmen 
who  have  not,  according  to  regulations,  their  papers 
of  identification  on  them.  As  it  is  seen,  the  Austrian 
officials  know  how  to  carry  out  this  passive  resistance 
against  the  government.  The  losses  of  the  trade  are 
enormous,  and  yet,  it  seems  that  the  strike  has  not 
reached  its  full  development,  as  the  latest  news  from 
Istria  states  that  the  officials  of  the  coast  of  Istria 
are  ready  to  join  the  movement.  The  officials  of  the 
Slavonian  railways  have  published  an  appeal  to  the 
railwaymen  to  apply  strictly  the  rules  of  the  service, 
and  the  Lombardian  railway  emploj^es  have  issued  a 
declaration  of  solidarity  with  their  comrades  at  Trieste, 


WHAT   IS  A  UNION?  125 

whom   they  are    ready  to   support.      (Solidarity,    April 
8,  1911.) 

There  are  those  who  see  no  distinction  between 
the  modern  sabotage  and  the  old  machine  smash- 
ing. But  the  very  evident  and  essential  dif- 
ference shows  in  reality  the  distance  that  the 
proletariat  has  traveled  since  the  Thirties.  Ma- 
chine smashing  was  a  protest  of  the  defeated 
followers  of  the  cottage  industry  against  anni- 
hilation by  the  new  machines.  Their  wrath,  in- 
flamed by  the  ignorance  and  superstition  which 
their  narrow  life  in  small  rural  communities  had 
engendered  and  developed,  blazed  into  fury  at 
the  devildoms  of  the  new  machinery.  Their  feel- 
ings, moreover,  were  worked  upon  by  the  rural 
clergy,  who,  representing  the  interests  of  the  then 
dominant  squirearchy,  denounced  the  inventions 
as  ungodly  and  the  work  of  the  evil  one.  Ma- 
chine smashing  was  a  brutal,  ineffective  and 
stupid  attempt  at  staying  the  advance  of  science 
and  industry.  It  can  only  be  sympathetically 
explained  by  taking  into  account  the  sufferings 
of  individuals  in  a  transition  stage,  for  society 
with  a  frank  brutality  consigned  that  portion  of 
the  population  which  was  unable  to  adapt  itself 
to  the  new  regime  to  starvation  and  hopeless 
misery.  It  must  be  remembered  also  that  the 
machine  industry  engendered  a  number  of  related 
evils  such  as  child-labor,  the  separation  of  fam- 
ilies, the  breaking  up  of  the  group  on  which  the 
cottage  industry  depended  and  the  destruction  of 
village  life.  Sabotage  on  the  active  side,  how- 
ever, is  a  demonstration  in  favor  of  the  working 
class  at  the  point  of  production,  and  is  made  not 
in  terms  of  the  individual,  but  for  the  benefit  of 


126  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

the  class.  The  motive  is  a  class  motive,  not  an 
individual  one.  Moreover  the  action  is  directed 
against  the  machine,  not  as  a  machine,  but  as  the 
property  of  the  employer  and  is  in  reality  a 
claim  on  the  side  of  the  laborer  to  at  least  part 
ownership  of  the  machine,  i,  e.,  the  tool  of 
production. 

Whereas  machine  smashing  was  an  episode  in 
an  early  stage  of  economic  development,  when 
the  industrial  understanding  of  the  masses  was 
still  crude,  Sabotage  is  the  product  of  a  ripe 
experience  in  industrial  life.  It  comes  as  the 
expression  of  a  new  idea  of  class  interests  as 
directed  against  what  is  recognized  to  be  a 
hostile  class.  It  marks  the  arrival  of  a  certain 
portion  of  the  proletariat  at  a  stage  when  it  is 
able  to  contemplate  the  conquest  of  the  means  of 
production ;  and  to  take  practical  steps  not  con- 
sistent with  a  recognition  of  the  contract  of  em- 
ployment and  the  industrial  possession  of  the 
employer  of  the  tools  of  production  as  his  own 
property.  As  such  it  marks  a  notable  attack  upon 
the  fundamentals  of  the  existing  regime. 

It  may  be  conceded  that  in  many  of  its  mani- 
festations it  is  insignificant  and  almost  contempt- 
ible in  its  smallness,  that  it  may  be  used  for  in- 
defensible ends  and  to  gratify  private  spite,  but 
the  same  objections  may  be  directed  against  all 
such  manifestations,  and  the  fact  remains  thai 
sabotage,  that  is,  organized,  intelligent,  well  di- 
rected sabotage,  may  be  a  most  valuable  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  fighting  proletariat. 

THE   GENERAL   STRIKE 

A  much  more  important  and  recent  devel- 
opment of  revolutionary  unionsm  is  the  general 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  127 

strike  notion.  This  notion  has  advanced  pro- 
gressively and  has  spread  over  ever  widening 
areas.  First  mooted  at  the  International  in 
Geneva  in  1866,  it  has  been  brought  before  the 
International  Congresses  of  the  Socialist  Parties, 
where  it  has  always  been  defeated.  But  the  no- 
tion has  made  headway  even  among  political 
Socialists  and  today  it  receives  almost  universal 
approval  as  a  means  of  achieving  political  ends 
or  preventing  international  war.  Much  of  the 
early  opposition  to  it  was  due  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  fight  between  Socialism  and  anarchism, 
and  the  latter,  being  entirely  non-parhmentary, 
naturally  took  up  the  general  strike  as  an  effect- 
ive idea.  But  since  the  conflict  between  Socialist 
and  anarchist  is  now  practically  at  an  end  and 
the  controversial  heat  has  subsided,  even  the 
political  Socialists  are  ready  to  admit  that  polit- 
ical movement  without  industrial  support  is  not 
sufficient,  and  thus  the  general  strike  has  become 
rehabilitated,  at  least  for  the  purpose  of  supple- 
menting political  action. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  that  such  a  sweeping 
and  all-controlling  affair  as  a  general  strike,  suc- 
cessfully organized  and  properly  carried  out,  can 
be  relegated  to  the  dust  heap.  In  fact,  later 
developments  of  the  labor  movement  have  shown 
a  marked  tendency  to  consider  it  as  a  practicable 
method  for  enforcing  the  will  of  the  proletariat, 
at  least  in  such  matters  as  international  war. 
So  that  it  is  almost  safe  to  assume  that  the  ex- 
pression "general  nonsense,"  applied  to  the  gen- 
eral strike  by  the  German  Social  Democrats  in 
the  Brussels  Congress  in  1891,  is  not  likely  to 
be  repeated. 


128  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

In  1902  a  demonstration  occurred  at  Barcelona 
which  closely  resembled  the  general  strike  in 
that  particular  place,  and  soon  thereafter  a  val- 
iant attempt  was  made  in  Belgium  which  included 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men.  This 
latter  was  an  example  of  the  political  "mass- 
strike,"  as  it  was  intended  as  a  demonstration 
towards  the  gaining  of  universal  suffrage.  Both 
of  these  efforts  failed.  The  proponents  of  the 
idea  blamed  the  Social  Democrats  for  the  fail- 
ures and  the  latter  on  their  part  laid  it  at  the 
door  of  the  anarchists.  The  fact  seems  to  be 
that  neither  accusation  is  correct.  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  workers  had  not  gone  far  enough 
to  render  such  strikes  successful.  But  the  move- 
ment in  favor  of  the  general  strike  did  not  cease, 
on  the  contrary.  Sweden  and  Holland  both  ex- 
perimented in  the  same  direction  later,  with  the 
same  results,  though  the  action  took  on  a  broader 
scope  and  the  co-ordination  of  the  various  parts 
was  obviously  better  than  on  preceding  occasions. 

In  the  general  strike  in  Hungary  in  1904  the 
government  intervened  and  called  the  strikers  to 
the  colors  by  the  mobilization  of  reserves  to 
whom  no  less  than  eleven  thousand  strikers  be- 
longed. Arnold  Roller,  to  whose  pamphlet  in 
"The  Social  General  Strike"  (Bauer,  New  York) 
the  writer  of  this  is  indebted,  says  on  this  point : 
"This  again  proves  that  the  propaganda  of  the 
general  strike  must  be  supplemented  by  anti- 
military  propaganda,"  and  seems  thereby  to  admit 
that  the  general  strike  by  itself  is  not  altogether 
a  reliable  weapon,  for  if  anti-militarism  must  be 
taught  so  effectively  that  the  soldiers  will  refuse 
to  obey  the  order  to  come  to  the  colors,  before 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  129 

the  general  strike  can  be  successful,  it  is  obvious 
that  it  can  only  come  about  as  the  result  of 
effort  which  has  already  succeeded  in  rendering 
great  masses  of  the  proletarian  revolutionary. 
In  other  words,  the  general  strike  v^^ould  appear 
to  be  a  culmination  rather  than  a  means. 

This  seems  to  be  a  very  reasonable  conclusion 
in  view  of  the  factors  of  a  general  strike.  If 
it  is  to  last  for  any  length  of  time  it  implies  not 
only  a  co-ordination  and  control  which  have  as 
yet  not  been  developed  even  in  the  most  ad- 
vanced countries,  but  a  definiteness  of  final  pur- 
pose which  has  by  no  means  as  yet  made  itself 
clear  to  the  mind  of  the  masses  of  the  proletariat. 
As  a  revolutionary  proceeding  directed  towards 
the  attainment  of  a  political  object  it  is  conceiv- 
ably a  very  useful  weapon,  for  the  ruling  class, 
weighing  in  the  balance  concessions  in  liberalism, 
which  have  probably  been  granted  in  other  coun- 
tries without  any  particular  harm  befalling  those 
in  economic  control,  against  actual  economic  loss 
and  dislocation  of  business  on  a  great  scale,  will 
be  not  unlikely  to  yield.  In  fact,  the  general 
strike  thus  devoted  to  a  political  end  can  hardly 
fail  of  success.  Its  practical  probability,  how- 
ever, for  such  a  purpose  comes  rather  under  the 
head  of  politics.  The  recent  great  English  strikes 
mark  the  highest  point  yet  reached. 

It  is  sufficient  to  state  here  that  the  chief  advo- 
cates of  the  general  strike  do  not  regard  it  as 
a  piece  of  political  mechanism,  but  as  a  self- 
sufficient  revolutionary  demonstration  terminat- 
ing the  present  industrial  form  and  leading  to 
the  substitution  for  it  of  another.  In  fact,  the 
statement  is  made  that  the  social  general  strike 


130  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

means  the  emancipation  of  the  proletariat ;  in 
other  words,  the  general  strike  is  the  revolution. 
Taking  this  view  it  will  be  seen  that  the  general 
strike  is  an  end,  which  may  indeed  never  be 
reached,  but  the  very  contemplation  of  which 
tends  to  bring  the  proletariat  more  closely  to- 
gether and  to  abolish  dividing  lines,  whether  of 
craft,  or  of  country.  For  the  general  strike  in 
its  completeness  implies  the  international  general 
strike. 

Concomitant  with  the  growth  of  the  general 
strike  notion  other  processes  are  at  work  which 
tend  to  cause  that  notion  to  take  a  position  rela- 
tive to  them,  and  thus  prevent  the  general  strike 
from  standing  out  as  a  single  absolute  against 
a  background  of  industrial  tyranny.  In  fact, 
the  general  strike  advocate  who  sees  in  it  the 
great,  sole,  and  infallible  remedy  is  like  all  ped- 
dlers of  panaceas — somewhat  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  quack.  The  general  strike  is  a  con- 
summation of  an  ideal  which,  like  most  other 
ideals,  may  never  find  its  consummation,  but 
which  in  its  life  brings  into  being  other  and  more 
important  forces  than  the  ideal  itself.  Its  very 
failures  have  proved  its  tremendous  efficacy  as 
an  educational  means.  It  has  caused  a  complete 
overhauling  of  the  machinery  of  trade  organiza- 
tion; it  is  rapidly  educating  the  minds  of  the 
workers  to  a  comprehension  of  the  real  merits 
of  the  struggle  in  which  they  are  engaged,  and 
it  has  been  an  agency  in  the  creation  of  new 
forms  of  labor  organization  which  cannot  but 
have  a  most  important  effect  upon  the  future. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  131 


INDUSTRIAL  UNIONISM 


Out  of  the  discussion  on  the  general  strike 
arose  a  new  concept  of  unionism,  which  is  des- 
tined to  play  an  ever  more  considerable  part  in 
the  industrial  history  of  the  modern  world.  The 
general  strike  notion,  once  adopted,  the  question 
of  its  feasibility  led  naturally  to  the  overhaul- 
ing of  the  weapons  in  labor's  arsenal,  with  a  view 
to  the  determining  of  their  fitness  for  the  end 
in  view. 

Such  a  discussion  did  not  proceed  from  a 
priori  reasoning,  it  came  about,  as  always,  from 
the  actual  economic  circumstances  confronting 
the  working  class.  The  development  of  industry 
with  its  great  interrelations  of  productive  ma- 
chinery, and  its  concentration  of  capital ;  the  sep- 
aration of  the  functions  of  capitalist  and  entre- 
preneur which  had  necessarily  developed  from 
the  formation  of  the  corporation  and  the  joint 
stock  company;  the  always  persistent  and  some 
times  tragically  sudden  elimination  of  the  crafts 
by  the  discovery  of  new  methods  of  manufac- 
ture, in  short,  the  wholy  body  of  industrial 
changes,  which  together  constitute  the  latter  day 
greater  capitalistic  revolution,  necessitated  a 
change  in  working  class  tactics,  if  that  class  were 
not  to  be  entirely  submerged. 

The  political  revolt,  as  demonstrated  in  the 
political  Socialist  movement,  v;as  disappointing 
in  results,  and  the  political  wrangles  were  already 
beginning  to  wear  on  the  patience  of  the  prole- 
tariat. Great  figures  emerged  from  the  ranks 
of  the  political  fighters  and  played  their  parts 
on  the  stage  of  politics,  but  the  general  condition 


132  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

of  the  masses  did  not  seem  to  be  improved 
thereby. 

The  notion  thereupon  spread  rapidly  that  the 
workers  would  be  obliged  to  take  up  the  cudgels 
in  their  own  behalf  on  the  economic  field  and  the 
interest  of  the  proletariat  began  to  be  turned 
from  political  to  economic  organization. 

It  was  not  at  all  remarkable  that  this  should 
have  occurred  first  in  the  Latin  countries.  Neither 
political  Socialism  nor  craft  unionism  had  gained 
any  very  strong  foothold  in  these  countries, 
largely  because  of  the  backwardness  of  develop- 
ment of  industry.  France  in  particular  had 
passed  through  characteristically  strange  experi- 
ences with  the  labor  representation  in  the  cham- 
ber. Under  these  circumstances  the  general 
strike  notion  flared  into  prominence  and  became 
the  subject  of  heated  discussions,  until  in  1895, 
the  Confederation  Generale  du  Travail  came  into 
existence  and  what  has  since  become  known  as 
French  syndicalism  began  to  play  its  very  im- 
portant role  in  industrial  matters.  Henceforward 
syndicalism  and  industrial  unionism  became  im- 
portant subjects  of  discussion  in  labor  bodies 
throughout  the   world. 

Its  main  argument  rests  upon  the  concentra- 
tion of  modern  industry  which  has  rendered  the 
craft  form  of  organization  obsolete  as  a  fighting 
weapon.  It  is  precisely  the  craft  form  which  has 
become  thoroughly  established  in  the  English 
speaking  countries  and  the  dislodgment  of  it  as 
the  typical  figthing  labor  organization  constitutes 
the  main  point  of  conflict  in  labor  circles  at  the 
present  day.  The  essentials  of  the  craft  form  of 
organization,  with  its  weaknesses  and  limitations, 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  133 

have  already  been  discussed.  Owing,  however, 
to  the  tendency  of  governing  bodies  to  perpetu- 
ate themselves,  owing  also  to  the  jurisdictional 
disputes  which  arise  in  the  craft  organizations 
and  to  the  craft  "patriotism,"  which  springs 
from  them,  the  repair  of  these  defects  is  very 
difficult  of  accomplishment.  A  bristling  hedge 
of  conservatism  guards  the  existing  organizations 
directly  a  criticism  is  made.  The  union  officials, 
dreading  the  result  of  a  transformation  of  the 
organization  upon  their  salaries  and  position, 
vehemently  denounce  any  tendencies  towards 
such  changes.  Only  the  working  of  the  actual 
facts  upon  the  minds  of  the  masses  of  the  union 
members  can  effect  any  result.  The  effect  of  the 
facts  is,  however,  unavoidable  and  time  is  work- 
ing its  changes  in  the  union  labor  psychology  so 
that  we  see  a  constantly  growing  tendency  even 
in  the  ranks  of  the  conservative  craft  unions  to 
abolish  the  limitations  of  craft  unionism  and  to 
take  on  a  form  constantly  more  closely  approxi- 
mating industrial  unionism. 

In  the  Latin  countries,  however,  this  obstacle 
of  craft  unionism  has  not  to  any  great  extent  ex- 
isted. Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  had  polit- 
ical manipulation  tended  to  mislead  the  workers 
into  paths  of  political  meandering,  much  more 
to  the  advantage  of  the  small  bourgeois  than  to 
that  of  the  proletarian. 

This  lack  of  experience  has  its  advantages  as 
well  as  its  drawbacks,  for  it  enables  the  proletar- 
iat to  go  straight  to  the  point  at  issue  and  to 
develop  on  the  economic  field  directly  that 
strength  upon  which  it  must  rely  when  it  comes 
to  blows  with  the  greater  capitalism.     It  may  be 


134  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

objected  that  in  the  neglect  of  the  poHtical  mani- 
festation the  Latin  SyndicaHst  movement  over- 
looks manifold  advantages,  and  minimizes  the 
importance  of  political  action.  This  is  probably 
true,  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  much  more 
important  to  develop  the  economic  strength  in 
the  industrial  struggle  than  to  develop  a  prema- 
ture political  manifestation  which  under  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  is  bound  to  function 
more  as  a  small  bourgeois  than  as  a  proletarian 
product.  The  political  reflex  is  bound  to  come; 
it  is  a  reaction  which  cannot  be  avoided;  given 
the  economic  impulse  the  political  effect  takes 
place  to  the  full  extent  of  the  power  of  that  im- 
pulse. Without  the  economic  impulse  on  the  in- 
dustrial field  we  get  no  proletarian  political  re- 
flex, we  may,  and  indeed,  do  get  small  bourgeois 
reactions,  but  without  industrial  organizations 
we  cannot  possibly  get  proletarian  political  man- 
ifestations. 

But  more  than  all  these  abstract  considera- 
tions, which,  after  all,  appeal  more  to  the  student 
than  to  the  man  in  the  street,  with  the  ordinar}'^ 
workman,  who  is  more  concerned  with  getting 
his  daily  wage  than  with  anything  more  remote, 
actual  practical  results  count.  The  average  trade 
unionist  finds  himself  confronted  by  a  very  un- 
comfortable situation.  His  security  which  has 
up  to  the  present  depended  upon  the  utility  of 
the  strike  and  the  boycott  is  imperilled  by  the 
declining  efficacy  of  these  weapons  against  the 
present  organization  of  employers.  The  strike 
of  a  craft  is  impotent  against  an  aggregation  of 
crafts  of  which  that  one  craft  is  merely  an  iso- 
lated factor.     The  pick  of  the  skilled  unionists, 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  135 

with  large  treasuries  and  with  a  fairly  complete 
control  of  the  labor  situation,  as  they  have 
thought,  find  themselves  rudely  challenged  when 
the  call  to  action  comes  and  the  fancied  superior- 
ity ebbs  away  before  the  actual  situation.  Men- 
aced on  the  one  hand  by  the  overpowering 
strength  of  their  organized  enemies,  their  craft 
eaten  away  from  under  their  feet  by  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  industrial  processes  which  have,  lit- 
tle by  little,  destroyed  their  standing  ground,  and 
surrounded  by  a  hungry  crowd  of  out  of  work 
"unskilled"  men  whom  the  very  process  of  ma- 
chine development  has  converted  into  highly 
skilled,  at  least  as  regards  their  effectiveness  in 
keeping  the  works  going  during  a  time  of  strike, 
they  confront  a  situation  as  novel  as  painful. 
It  is  no  wonder  then  that  in  the  hour  of  defeat 
they  examine  the  structure  of  their  organization 
and  endeavor  to  discover  the  reasons  for  their 
failure.  They  find  it  in  the  fact  that  they  are 
unable  to  contend  against  the  industrial  power 
of  the  masters  in  terms  of  the  craft  union. 

Those  who  have  been  forced  from  the  position 
of  craftsmen  into  the  ranks  of  the  unskilled  by 
the  operation  of  the  same  forces  also  are  made 
aware  of  their  whereabouts.  They  are  unasso- 
ciated.  The  crafts  are  iron  to  their  endeavors 
to  join  the  union ;  they  are  confronted  by  the 
gates  and  enclosures  which  the  so-called  skilled 
have  raised  about  themselves  to  maintain  their 
hold  on  the  market.  The  body  of  which  they 
form  a  part  is  unorganized ;  it  is  a  horde  seeking 
food  and  shelter  where  it  best  can,  self -devour- 
ing, in  great  part  a  roaming  horde.  But  a  horde 
may  be  organized.     Given  the  proper  stimulus 


136  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

which  can  impel  the  individuals  of  the  horde  to 
seek  a  common  end  and  the  secret  of  organization 
is  discovered.  Henceforward  the  horde  becomes 
an  organized  body  and  all  the  better  organized 
and  the  more  enduring  in  that  it  has  suffered  the 
hardships  and  known  the  adversities  of  poverty 
and  lack  of  organization. 

Common  labor,  with  no  differentiating  quali- 
ties, common  unskilled  labor,  is  the  fundamenetal 
of  such  an  organization,  which  must  obviously 
permit  of  the  widest  possible  extension  and  ful- 
fill the  deepest  and  most  intimate  needs. 

This  opportunity  for  the  organization  of  the 
unskilled  occurs  really  only  in  the  industrial  form 
of  organization.  The  crafts,  it  is  true,  are  en- 
deavoring to  organize  the  migratory  unskilled 
labor,  but  they  must  fail  because  the  crafts  can 
never  allow  the  unskilled  the  necessary  voice  in 
labor  affairs.  The  unskilled  man  approaches  the 
question  from  an  entirely  different  standpoint 
than  that  of  the  craftsman.  His  attitude  is  natur- 
ally and  unavoidably  revolutionary,  for  he  has 
nothing  to  conserve.  Hence  his  presence  in  the 
same  oraginzation  with  the  craftsman,  organized 
in  the  craft  union,  is  distressing  to  the  latter,  for 
the  unskilled  will  make  demands  which  the 
craftsman  cannot  agree  that  the  unskilled  man 
can  have,  and  the  unskilled  man,  by  virtue  of 
his  basic  position,  can,  if  he  be  organized,  upset 
the  entire  trade  structure  and  bring  the  crafts- 
man, willy-nilly,  along  with  him.  This  explains 
the  following  dialogue  between  the  writer  of  this 
and  a  prominent  trade  union  leader. 

Q.     Are  you  organizing  the  unskilled? 

A.     No. 


WHAT   IS  A  UNION?  137 

Q.    Why? 

A.  Because  if  we  organize  them  they  will 
want  something  right  away  and  then  we  shall 
be  in  a  bad  fix. 

Q.     Are  you  organizing  the  foreign  laborers? 

A.     No. 

Q.     Why? 

A.  Because  they  have  no  vote,  and  for  the 
same  reasons  that  we  are  not  organizing  the  un- 
skilled generally. 

This,  which  is  a  bona  fide  conversation,  ex- 
plains the  attitude  of  the  craft  union  man  to 
the  unskilled  laborer.  It  could  not  be  otherwise 
in  his  present  view  of  the  functions  and  ends  of 
unionism. 

But  directly  there  is  an  attempt  made  at  indus- 
trial organization  a  new  point  of  view  becomes 
necessary.  All  grades  of  workers  in  the  in- 
dustry must  be  brought  in  and  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  control  of  the  industry  all  are 
equally  important.  Hence  there  comes  about  a 
gradual  levelling  up  of  the  lower  grades  of  labor 
with  no  levelling  down  of  the  higher.  Indeed, 
the  problem  is  to  at  least  maintain  the  best  level 
for  the  skilled  and  raise  that  of  the  unskilled, 
the  very  antithesis  of  the  existing  plan  which  en- 
deavors to  reap  benefits  for  the  skilled  without 
improving  the  position  of  the  unskilled,  and  thus 
keeps  in  reserve  a  hungry  army,  ready  to  rush 
in  and  devour  in  times  of  strikes  and  bad  trade. 
It  will  be  thus  readily  seen  that  the  industrial 
union  is  revolutionary.  This  is  clearly  shown 
in  the  literature  of  the  movement.  Thus,  to  quote 
from  the  INDUSTRIAL  SYNDICALIST,  pub- 
lished in  England,  of  which  Tom  Mann  is  the 
editor : 


138  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

THAT  IT  WILL  BE  AVOWEDLY  AND  CLEAR- 
LY REVOLUTIONARY  IN  AIM  AND  METHOD. 

Revolutionary  in  method,  because  it  will  refuse  to 
enter  into  any  long  agreements  with  the  masters, 
whether  with  legal  or  state  backing,  or  merely  volun- 
tarily ;  and  because  it  will  seize  every  chance  of  fight- 
ing for  the  general  betterment — gaining  ground  and 
never  losing  any. 

Again,  on  the  same  point,  Eugene  V.  Debs,  in 
his  letter  to  Tom  Mann  of  July  10th,  1910,  pub- 
lished in  the  publication  above  referred  to,  says : 

Industrial  evolution  has  made  industrial  unionism 
possible  and  revolutionary  education  and  agitation  must 
now  make  it  inevitable.  To  this  end  we  should  bore 
from  within  and  without,  the  industrial  unionists  within 
the  old  unions  working  together  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  industrial  unionists  upon  the  outside  engaged 
in  laying  the  foundation  and  erecting  the  superstruc- 
ture of  the  new  revolutionary  economic  organization, 
the  embryonic,  industrial  democracy. 

The  difficulties  we  have  encountered  on  this  side 
since  organizing  the  Industrial  Workers  have  largely 
been  overcome  and  I  believe  the  time  is  near  at 
hand  when  all  industrial  unionists  will  work  together 
to  build  up  the  needed  organization,  and  when  in- 
dustrial unionism  will  receive  such  impetus  as  will 
force  it  to  the  front  irresistibly  in  response  to  the 
crying  need  of  the  enslaved  and  despoiled  workers  in 
their  struggle   for   emancipation. 

The  economic  organization  of  the  working  class  is 
as  essential  to  the  revolutionary  movement  as  the  sun 
is  to  light  and  the  workers  are  coming  more  and 
more  to  realize  it,  and  the  triumph  of  industrial  union- 
ism over  craft  unionism  is  but  a  question  of  time,  and 
this  can  be  materially  shortened  if  we  but  deal  wisely 
and  sanely  with  the  situation. 

It  appears  everywhere  aiso  that  industrial 
unionism  is  partly  the  result  of  discontent  with 
the  effects  of  political  socialism,  as  so  far  shown 
in  the  actions  of  the  political  socialist  parties. 


WHAT   IS  A  UNION?  139 

The  French  and  the  ItaHan  papers  and  pamphlets 
naturally  take  this  view,  as  they  have  always 
been  anti-parliamentary,  having  come  under  the 
anarchist  influence  early  in  their  development, 
for  owing  to  the  industrial  backwardness  of 
the  Latin  countries  the  propaganda  of  Bakounin 
was  always  preferred  to  that  of  Marx  by  the 
revolutionary  element.  But  the  Northern  and 
Teutonic  countries  are  showing  very  much  the 
same  feeling  and  there  is  a  growing  dissatisfac- 
tion with  such  parliamentary  representation  as 
the  proletariat  is  supposed  to  have  had  at  the 
hands  of  the  regular  official  socialists.  Tom 
Mann,  who  is  promoting  the  idea  of  industrial 
unionism  in  England  and  is  careful  to  say  that 
industrial  unionism  is  not  anti-political,  says, 
however,  it  is  non-political.  In  his  pamphlet 
"PREPARE  FOR  ACTION"  (vol.  1,  No.  1), 
The  Industrial  Syndicalist,  July,  1910,  Guy  Bow- 
man, 4  Maude  Terrace,  Walthamstow,  London, 
pubHshed),  he  says: 

Those  who  have  been  in  close  touch  with  the  move- 
ment know  that  in  recent  years  dissatisfaction  has  been 
expressed  in  various  quarters  at  the  results  so  far 
achieved  by  our  Parliamentarians. 

Certainly  nothing  very  striking  in  the  way  of  con- 
structive work  could  reasonably  be  expected  from 
the  minorities  of  Socialists  and  labor  men  hitherto 
elected.  But  the  most  modern  and  fair  minded  are 
compelled  to  declare  that,  not  in  one  country  but  in 
all,  a  proportion  of  those  comrades  who,  prior  to  be- 
ing returned,  were  unquestionably  revolutionary,  are 
no  longer  so  after  a  few  years  in  Parliament.  They 
are  revolutionary  neither  in  their  attitude  towards  ex- 
isting society  nor  in  respect  of  present  day  institu- 
tions. Indeed,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  many 
seem  to  have  constituted  themselves  apologists  for 
existing  society,  showing  a  degree  of  studious  respect 
for   bourgeois    conditions,    and    a   toleration    of    hour- 


140  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

geois   methods,    that    destroys   the    probabiHty   of  their 
doing  any   real   work   of   a   revolutionary  character. 

I  shall  not  here  attempt  to  juggle  with  the  quibble 
of  "Revolution  or  Evolution," — or  to  meet  the  conten- 
tion of  some  of  those  under  consideration  that  it  is 
not  revolution  that  is  wanted.  "You  cannot  change 
the  world  and  yet  not  change  the  world." 

REVOLUTION  IS  THE  MEANS  OF,  NOT  THE  ALTERNA- 
TIVE TO,   EVOLUTION 

I  simply  state  that  a  working  class  movement 
that  is  not  revolutionary  in  character  is  not  of 
the  slightest  use  to  the  working  class. 

In  defining  the  characteristics  of  French  Syn- 
dicalism to  which  the  Industrial  unionism  of 
the  English  speaking  countries  looks  for  much 
of  its  inspiration,  Tom  Mann  says  in  the  pam- 
phlet above  quoted : 

They  are,  for  the  most,  anti-patriotic  and  anti-mili- 
tarist, e.  g.,  they  declare  that  the  workers  have  no 
country  and  are  not  prepared  to  fight  in  the  interests 
of  a  bureaucracy;  but  most  distinctly  are  prepared  to 
fight  for  the  overturn  of  capitalism  in  France  and  else- 
where.    They  are  "non"  not  "anti"  parliamentary. 

The  preamble  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
of  World,  which  in  1905  took  up  a  definite  posi- 
tion with  regard  to  political  action,  was  in  1908 
revised  at  Chicago  to  read :  "That  to  the  end 
of  promoting  industrial  unity  and  of  securing 
necessary  discipline  within  the  organization,  the 
I.  W.  W.  refuses  all  alliances,  direct  or  indirect, 
with  existing  political  parties,  or  anti-political 
sects,  and  disclaims  responsibility  for  any  indi- 
vidual opinion  or  act  which  may  be  at  variance 
with  the  purposes  herein  expressed."  This  atti- 
tude has  been  variously  interpreted.  Some  have 
held  it  to  be  anarchistic  and  antagonistic  to  polit- 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  141 

ical  action.  Others,  whose  opinions  Tom  Mann 
voices  in  the  following  words  explanatory  of  the 
above  quotation  (Industrial  Syndicalist,  Vol.  1, 
No.  6)  :  "This  meant  that  they  were  neither 
pro  nor  anti-political,  and  that  they  took  up  an 
industrial  position  only." 

Herve,  in  "La  Guerre  Sociale,"  has  explained 
more  than  once  that  he  is  not  opposed  to  polit- 
ical action  as  such,  and  in  fact  would  use  his 
vote  under  circumstances  in  which  he  fancied 
that  it  would  be  of  any  value  to  proletarian  revo- 
lutionary action. 

The  following  bold  statement  is  made  by  the 
English  Industrialists  (Industrial  Syndicalist, 
Vol.  I,  No.  8):  "Parliamentary  Action  is  sec- 
ondary in  importance  to  Industrial  Action;  it 
is  industrial  action  alone  that  makes  political 
action  effective ;  but  with  or  without  Parliament- 
ary action  industrial  Solidarity  will  insure  eco- 
nomic freedom,  and  therefore  the  abolition  of 
capitalism  and  all  its  accompanying  poverty  and 
misery." 

William  D.  Haywood,  perhaps  the  most  pow- 
erful of  the  advocates  of  Industrial  unionism  in 
the  United  States,  says  (International  Socialist 
Review,  May,  1911)  : 

There  is  this  justification  for  political  action,  and 
that  is  to  control  the  forces  of  the  capitalists  that  they 
use  against  us ;  to  be  in  a  position  to  control  the  gov- 
ernment so  as  to  make  the  work  of  the  army  ineffective; 
so  as  to  totally  abolish  the  secret  service  and  the  force 
of  detectives.  That  is  the  reason  that  you  want  the 
power  of  government.  That  is  the  reason  that  you 
should  fully  understand  the  power  of  the  ballot. 

Now,  there  is  not  anyone,  Socialist,  S.  L.  P.,  Indus- 
trial Worker,  or  any  other  working  man  or  woman,  no 
matter  what  society  you  belong  to,  but  what  believes 


142  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

in  the  ballot.  There  are  thousands — I  am  one  of  them 
— who  refuse  to  have  the  ballot  interpreted  for  them. 
I  know,  or  think  I  know,  the  power  of  it,  and  I  know 
that  the  industrial  organization,  as  I  stated  in  the 
beginning,  is  its  broadest  interpretation.  I  know,  too, 
that  when  the  workers  are  brought  together  in  a 
great  organization  they  are  not  going  to  cease  to 
vote.  That  is  when  the  workers  will  begin  to  vote, 
to  vote  for  directors  to  operate  the  industries  in 
which  they  are  all  employed. 

The  claim  is  also  made  for  Industrial  union- 
ism, thai  it  is  working  class  socialism  as  dis- 
tinguished from  what  may  be  denominated  the 
petit-bourgeois  socialism  which  has  so  far  dom- 
inated the  councils  of  the  Socialist  Parties  in  this 
country  and  in  Europe.  E.  J.  B.  Allen  (Vol.  1, 
No.  5,  Industrial  Syndicalist)  says  on  this  point: 

Industrial  unionism  is  working-class  socialism ;  it  is 
the  only  logical  form  of  working-class  organization 
able  to  cope  with  the  conditions  that  have  been  inau- 
gurated by  the  great  development  of  machinery,  and 
the  minute  subdivision  and  simplification  of  industry 
attendant  thereto.  The  industrial  unionist  seeks  to 
unite  all  the  workers  of  an  industry  into  one  union, 
and  to  establish  a  complete  co-operation  of  all  the 
industrial  organizations,  with  the  object  of  not  only 
obtaining  the  best  results  in  the  daily  wage-wars,  but 
also  to  effect  their  emancipation  from  the  system  of 
wage-slavery. 

The  union  movement  is  the  only  one  capable  of  unit- 
ing the  workers  as  a  class  on  the  grounds  of  their 
economic  interests.  The  real  interests  of  the  workers 
are  the  full  proceeds  of  their  labor,  their  productive 
energ>' ;  and  this  necessarily  means  the  taking  into  pos- 
session of  the  mines,  railways,  factories,  and  mills, 
by  those  who  operate  them. 

We  have  seen  that  labor  legislation  is  of  little  use 
without  an  adequate  organization  to  see  that  the  reform 
regulations  are  properly  enforced.  We  have  seen,  fur- 
ther, that  an  adequate  organization  can  enforce  re- 
forms, whether  on  the  statute  book  or  not. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  143 

Many  working  class  representatives  have  been 
elected  to  public  bodies,  and  after  some  time  have 
passed  "to  the  other  side  of  the  barricade;"  the  indus- 
trial union  is  the  only  safeguard  against  wholesale 
treachery  that  the  workers  can  have.  It  is  the  bul- 
wark alike  against  a  state  bureaucracy  or  a  military 
despotism. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  Industrial  Unionism 
is  contemplated  as  a  form  of  labor  organization, 
which  involves  political  consequences  of  the  most 
sweeping  character,  and  which,  while  not  laying 
stress  upon  parliamentarism,  contemplates  the  ac- 
quisition of  real  political  power  as  a  matter  of 
course.  It  is  therefore  considered  by  its  advo- 
cates not  only  as  an  instrument  for  the  attain- 
ment of  vast  industrial  and  economic  ends,  but 
as  a  means  for  the  gaining  of  real  political  power 
by  obtaining  that  economic  power  on  which  in 
the  last  analysis  all  political  power  admittedly 
rests. 

The  notion  of  mutualistic  group  co-operation, 
which  the  anarchists  proposed  to  substitute  for 
the  competitive  system,  has,  of  course,  disap- 
peared with  the  competitive  system,  and  the  no- 
tion of  a  domination  of  the  great  industrial 
manifestations  of  the  modern  world  carries  with 
it  and  necessarily  implies  the  notion  of  the  world 
domination. 

To  this  end  industrial  unionism,  by  virtue  of 
its  inherent  internationalism,  of  necessity  largely 
contributes.  Anti-militarism  has  been  stated  to 
be  an  essential  element  in  the  French  form  and 
will  undoubtedly  appear  wherever  industrial 
unionism  manifests  itself.  But  internationalism 
is  absolutely  incomprehensible  to  the  craft 
unions.     Their  small  trade  view,  with  their  nar- 


144  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

row  and  prejudiced  regard  of  the  interests  of 
the  workers  in  the  mass,  render  such  a  breadth 
of  comprehension  as  is  imphed  in  international- 
ism impossible  to  them.  The  same  stupid  nar- 
rowness pervades  the  Socialist  supporters  and 
representatives  of  the  craft  unions,  that  is  to 
say,  practically  the  entire  official  body  of  the 
Socialist  Party  in  this  country.  It  was  gener- 
ally whispered  that  the  United  States  delegation 
at  the  last  International  Socialist  Congress  at 
Copenhagen  had  been  largely  instrumental  in 
preventing  the  proper  development  of  the  war 
against  war  campaign  in  the  Socialist  movement. 
The  following  statement  by  Robert  Rives  La 
Monte  (International  Socialist  Review,  May, 
1911)  on  that  point  is  very  illuminative  and  in 
view  of  the  known  influences  at  work  in  the  So- 
cialist Party  may  be  unhestitatingly  accepted. 

At  the  International  Congress  at  Copenhagen  our 
comrades,  Edward  Vaillant,  of  France,  and  Keir  Hardie, 
of  England,  went  to  the  root  of  the  matter  by  intro- 
ducing an  amendment  to  the  Peace  Resolution,  declar- 
ing that  in  the  event  of  war  the  Socialists  in  the  coun- 
tries involved  should  and  would  do  their  utmost  tc 
bring  about  a  general  strike  in  the  transportation  in- 
dustries and  in  those  industries  providing  the  muni- 
tions of  war. 

This  amendment  received  such  strong  support  from 
France  and  England  that  bad  the  American  delegation 
taken  a  strong  stand  in  its  favor,  it  is  possible  it 
would  have  been  passed.  But  the  American  delega- 
tion took  no  such  stand.  It  was  not  built  that  way. 
It  did  not  want  to  "i-ecognize  the  principle  of  the  gen- 
eral strike."  It  was  afraid  of  "playing  into  the  hands 
of  the  Impossibilists."  It  apparently  Ijelieved  that  the 
best  way  to  follow  Comrade  Hillquit's  advice  to  "dis- 
card the  revolutionary  phrases  for  revolutionary  ac- 
tion," was  carefully  to  avoid  both. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  145 

The  very  idea  that  such  International  action  is 
sufficiently  feasible  to  be  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration is  in  itself  a  victory.  But  it  is  notably 
a  victory  which  the  craft  unionists  cannot  pur- 
sue. It  is  not  only  impossible  for  them  but  in- 
conceivable by  them.  The  attitude  of  mind  pro- 
duced by  a  contemplation  of  the  necessities  and 
limitations  of  craft  unionism  is,  speaking  with- 
out regard  to  necessary  exceptions,  practically 
and  essentially  unchangeable.  .  It  is  this  which 
makes  the  development  of  the  already  established 
craft  unions  into  industrial  unions  almost  un- 
thinkable. The  future  and  the  great  things  of  the 
future  are  quite  incompatible  with  the  survival 
of  the  craft  union  notion  while  at  the  same  time 
they  harmonize  well  with  the  fundamental  doc- 
trines of  industrial  unionism. 

Wherever  we  turn  in  the  examination  of  in- 
dustrial unionism  we  find  the  same  great  field 
of  vision  and  the  same  implied  action  upon  the 
part  of  a  united  proletariat.  It  is  this  fact  which 
gives  industrial  unionism  such  a  promise  of  the 
future,  which  transforms  it  from  a  mere  machine 
for  raising  wages  and  diminishing  hours  into  an 
engine  of  human  liberation.  The  essential  dif- 
ference and  vital  distinction  between  the  small 
bourgeois  and  the  modern  proletarian  are  obvious 
in  the  different  regard  which  craft  unionism  and 
industrial  unionism  turn  upon  modern  industrial 
relations.  To  the  former  the  contract  of  employ- 
ment is  the  impassable  gulf  which  must  be  rec- 
ognized as  permanent,  therefore,  all  there  is  in 
life  for  the  proletarian  is  to  bargain  shrewdly, 
to  make  smart  and  clever  turns  of  trade,  to  gain 
a  little  here,  to  knock  off  a  little  there.    Indeed, 


146  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

the  representative  of  the  craft  unonist  becomes 
by  virtue  of  that  unerring  instinct  which  mokes 
the  common  people  hit  on  just  the  right  word, 
the  "business  agent"  of  the  union,  the  dickerer  in 
general  for  the  members  of  the  craft. 

How  different  is  the  socialist  conception  which 
underlies  industrial  unionism  and  which  compels 
the  industrial  unionist  to  take  every  possible  step 
looking  to  his  final  acquisition  of  the  product 
and  the  tools  of  production.  The  aim  glorifies  his 
course;  internationalism,  the  anti-military  cam- 
paign, an  ever  widening  confederation  of  labor, 
more  comprehensive,  more  human,  follows  in 
the  wake  of  the  industrial  movement ;  it  becomes 
pregnant  with  the  greatest  promise  to  humanity. 
It  transforms  the  labor  movement  from  an  un- 
co-ordinated  scramble  for  isolated  small  bar- 
gains into  a  coherent  and  harmonious  interna- 
tional progress  towards  a  definite  goal. 

The  pettiness  and  cheapness  inherent  in  the 
craft  union  disappear  in  the  splendor  of  the 
promise  which  is  unfolded  to  the  worker  in  the 
program  of  industrial  unionism. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  movement  in  history  has 
required  as  much  from  its  apologists  as  has  the 
craft  union  movement.  The  vice  of  small  busi- 
ness has  beset  it,  the  ambitions  of  the  small  trader 
have  been  mirrored  in  the  ambitions  of  the  craft 
union  leader.  Being  hucksters  they  could  not 
avoid  the  huckster  disposition.  Their  personal 
ambitions  have  been  not  with  their  class,  but  out- 
side their  class.  The  union  leaders  have  there- 
fore used  their  working  class  as  a  stepping  stone 
by  which  to  lift  themselves  into  a  more  comfort- 
able and  secure  position,  consequently  the  whole 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  147 

craft  union  movement  has  been  marked  by  a 
succession  of  personal  treacheries  on  the  part  of 
labor  leaders.  The  inherent  brutality  implied 
in  the  craft  union  point  of  view  has  caused  its 
exponents  to  neglect  the  weaker  elements  of  so- 
ciety and  to  ignore  the  claims  of  that  suffering 
portion  of  the  proletariat  whose  needs  are  par- 
amount. 

The  very  term,  industrial  unionism,  implies  the 
opposite  of  all  this.  The  industrial  structure  com- 
prises all  the  factors ;  the  woman  worker,  the 
unskilled,  the  migratory,  the  roustabout,  are  all 
part  and  parcel  of  the  industry  at  which,  for 
the  time  being,  they  happen  to  be  employed. 
They  are  not  derelict,  they  are  component  and 
necessary  factors  in  the  composition  of  the  work- 
ing class,  specific  and  indestructible  elements  in 
the  particular  industry  in  which  they  take  part. 
No  matter  if  the  form  of  the  industry  changes, 
they  change  with  it.  An  unskilled  laborer  of  today 
may  be  one  week  engaged  in  labor  work  at  a 
foundry  and  during  the  next  week  may  be  labor- 
ing in  the  building  trade.  Such  a  man  is  impos- 
sible in  the  craft  organization.  It  is  true  that 
some  steps  have  been  made  to  incorporate  him  in 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  under  the 
charter  of  the  United  Laborers,  but,  as  we  have 
seen  elsewhere,  the  existence  of  an  unskilled 
labor  union  is  incompatible  with  the  structure 
of  the  A.  F,  of  L.  To  the  industrial  unionist  such 
a  person  presents  no  problem  at  all.  He  falls 
into  his  category  spontaneously,  being  at  one 
time  under  the  metal  trades  jurisdiction  and  at 
another  under  that  of  the  building  trades,  and 
all  the  time  under  the  great  combined  industrial 


148  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

organization.  So  simple  is  the  idea,  so  obviously 
practical.  Yet,  a  few  years  ago  the  very  thought 
would  have  been  impossible.  Its  practicability 
has  resulted  from  the  development  of  industry 
itself  from  that  operation  of  industrial  processes 
which  have  rendered  the  industrial  form  of  or- 
ganization at  once  the  most  obvious  and  the  most 
essential. 

It  is  thus  that  in  Industrial  Unionism  we  get 
the  first  real  attempt  at  a  realization  of  that 
class  war  which  has  been  so  vehemently  and  so 
vainly  proclaimed  for  so  long.  The  gathering 
together  of  a  band  of  small  bourgeois  and  craft 
unionists  into  a  group,  denominating  that  group 
a  political  party,  singing  the  Marseillaise,  indif- 
ferently, badly,  and  declaring  a  class  war  has 
almost  reached  its  limit  of  entertainment. 

With  this  sort  of  revolution  goes,  too,  the 
touching  faith  in  the  state  as  an  employer.  Mu- 
nicipal ownership  and  State  ownership,  trans- 
lated into  the  dulcet  expressions.  "Municipal 
Socialism"  and  ''State  Socialism"  are  being 
found  out.  The  sweating  exposed  in  govern- 
ment industries,  the  failure  of  the  government 
to  be  even  a  "good  employer,"  a  failure  equally 
conspicuous  in  Europe  as  in  the  United  States 
has  given  the  government  ownership  advocates 
pause.  The  most  striking  and  illuminative  oc- 
currence, however,  was  the  French  Railroad 
Strike  of  1910,  when  the  government  did  not 
hesitate  to  call  the  striking  workmen  to  the  col- 
ors as  reservists  and  to  exercise  its  military 
functions  in  support  of  its  tyrannical  behavior 
as  an  employer  of  labor.  Under  such  condi- 
tions there  is  little  wonder  that  the  Municipal 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  149 

and  State  ownership  political  campaigns  cease  to 
excite  notable  interest  on  the  part  of  the  work- 
ing class. 

The  conflict  is  to  be  converted  into  a  class  war 
beginning  at  the  point  of  production.  The  in- 
dustrial Unionist  favors  the  ever  widening  de- 
velopment of  that  conflict  until  overwhelming 
forces  are  brought  into  the  field.  Thus  W.  F, 
Hay  (Industrial  Syndicalist,  Vol  I,  No.  5)  says: 
"We  must  prepare  for  action ;  while  we  shall 
still  find  possibly  that  conciliation  has  its  uses 
for  us,  just  as  diplomacy  has  for  a  nation,  yet 
behind  that  diplomacy  there  must  be  force ! — 
force  strongly  organized,  conscious  of  its  mis- 
sion and  its  strength — force  so  applied  and  driven 
home  by  constantly  increasing  pressure  that  the 
masters  will  have  to  give  to  force  what  they 
deny  to  justice.  We  must  organize  in  such  a 
way  that  no  matter  how  few  men  are  involved 
at  first,  if  a  principle  is  at  stake  we  must  make 
the  area  of  the  struggle  rapidly  larger  and  larger, 
until  such  vast  interests  are  involved  as  to  com- 
pel a  settlement  in  our  favor." 

So  that  the  industrial  unionism  terminates  as 
it  began  in  the  general  strike  idea.  Its  culmina- 
tion is  the  general  strike  and  the  successful  gen- 
eral strike  is  the  means  of  the  social  revolution, 
in  fact,  the  successful  general  strike  may  be 
called  the  social  revolution  itself. 

Perhaps  the  American  organization,  the  In- 
dustrial Workers  of  the  World  has  the  most 
complete  recognition  of  the  functions  and  aims 
of  industrial  unionism.  This  naturally  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  craft  unions  are  in  pos- 
session of  the  field  m  the  United  States  and  in 


150  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

order  to  make  its  position  sufficiently  clear  the 
I.  W.  W.  must  state  it  accurately  and  concisely. 
The  Preamble  to  the  Constitution  of  the  I.  W. 
W.  reads  as  follows : 

The  working  class  and  the  employing  class  have 
nothing  in  common.  There  can  be  no  peace  so  long  as 
hunger  and  want  are  found  among  millions  of  working 
people  and  the  few,  who  make  up  the  employing  class, 
have  all  the  good  things  of  life.  Between  these  two 
classes  a  struggle  must  go  on  until  the  workers  of 
the  world  organize  as  a  class,  take  possession  of  the 
earth  and  the  machinery  of  production,  and  abolish 
the  wage  system. 

We  find  that  the  centering  of  the  management  of  in- 
dustries into  fewer  and  fewer  hands  makes  the  trades 
unions  unable  to  cope  with  the  ever  growing  power  of 
the  employing  class.  The  trade  unions  foster  a  state 
of  affairs  which  allows  one  set  of  workers  to  be 
pitted  against  another  set  of  workers  in  the  same 
industry,  thereby  helping  defeat  one  another  in  wage 
wars.  Moreover,  the  trade  unions  aid  the  employing 
class  to  mislead  the  workers  into  the  belief  that  the 
working  class  have  interests  in  common  with  their 
employers. 

These  conditions  can  be  changed  and  the  interest  of 
the  working  class  upheld  only  by  an  organization  formed 
in  such  a  way  that  all  its  members  in  any  industry, 
or  in  all  industries,  if  necessary,  cease  work  when- 
ever a  strike  or  lockout  is  on  in  any  department  thereof, 
thus  making  an  injury  to  one  an  injury  to  all. 

Instead  of  the  conservative  motto,  "A  fair  day's 
wages  for  a  fair  day's  work,  we  must  inscribe  on  our 
banner  the  revolutionary  watchword,  "Abolition  of  the 
wage  system." 

It  is  the  historic  mission  of  the  working  class  to  do 
away  with  capitalism.  The  army  of  production  must 
be  organized,  not  only  for  the  every-day  struggle  with 
capitalists,  but  also  to  carry  on  production  when  cap- 
italism shall  have,  been  overthrown.  By  organizing 
industrially  we  are  forming  the  structure  of  the  ne\v 
society  within  the   shell  of  the  old. 


WHAT   IS  A   UNION?  151 

Knowing,  therefore,  that  such  an  organization  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  for  our  emacipation,  we  unite  under 
the  following  constitution. 

The  constitution  provides  for  an  organization 
composed  of  actual  wage  workers.  The  real 
basis  of  the  organization  is  the  Local  Industrial 
Union  to  be  composed  of  "All  the  actual  wage 
workers  in  a  given  industry  in  a  given  locality 
welded  together  in  trade  or  shop  branches,  or  as 
the  particular  requirements  of  the  said  industry 
may  render  necessary." 

A  further  development  of  this  fundamental 
unit  consists  in  the  National  Industrial  Unions, 
whose  functions  are  thus  described ;  "Whenever 
there  are  more  than  five  local  industrial  unions 
in  any  one  industry  having  a  joint  membership 
of  three  thousand  or  more  National  Industrial 
Unions  shall  maintain  all  communications  be- 
tween Local  Industrial  Unions  and  General 
Headquarters  until  such  time  as  the  Department 
to  which  the  National  Industrial  Union  belongs 
is  organized." 

The  Industrial  Department  consists  of  "Two 
or  more  National  Industrial  Unions  aggregat- 
ing a  membership  of  not  less  than  10,000  mem- 
bers. The  Departments  shall  have  general  super- 
vision over  the  affairs  of  the  National  Industrial 
Unions  composing  same,  provided  the  general 
Executive  Board  shall  have  power  to  control 
these  departments  in  matters  concerning  the 
welfare  of  the  general  organization." 

The  Departments  are  designated  as  follows: 

Department  of  Mining  Industry. 
Department  of  the    Transportation    Industry. 
Department  of  Metal  and  Machinery  Industry, 


152  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Department  of  Glass  and   Potterj'   Industry. 

Department  of  Food  Stuffs  Industry. 

Department  of  Brewery,  Wine,  and  Distillers'  Indus- 
try. 

Department  of  Floricultural,  Stock  and  General 
Farming  Industries. 

Department  of  the  Building  Industry. 

Department  of  the  Textile  Industries. 

Department  of  the  Leather  Industries. 

Department  of  the  Wood  Service  Industries. 

Department  of  Miscellaneous    Manufacturing. 

Thus  we  get  an  organization  which  differs 
in  all  essentials  from  the  trade  union  as  hereto- 
fore known.  The  craft  element  serves  not  as 
the  essential  unit  but  as  subsidiary  to  the  in- 
dustrial essential  unit.  Not  that  the  craft  is  re- 
fused recognition.  On  the  contrary  it  is  dis- 
tinctly provided  that  the  local  industrial  unions 
are  to  consist  of  workers  organized  either  ac- 
cording to  the  trade  or  according  to  the  shop 
as  may  be  most  suitable  under  the  circumstances 
of  the  particular  case. 

It  is  exceedingly  improbable  that  the  exact 
lines  of  organization  as  here  laid  down  will  be 
followed  without  deviation.  In  fact,  many 
important  structural  changes  will  unquestionably 
be  made.  But  in  its  general  scope,  and  as  re- 
gards elasticity,  subordination,  discipline,  and 
all  the  elements  of  successful  proletarian  or- 
ganization it  is  indubitably  much  superior  to  any 
of  its  predecessors. 

The  Industrial  Union,  at  least  for  the  present, 
and  as  far  into  the  future  as  we  are  now  able 
to  see  must  stand  out  as  the  essentially,  prole- 
tarian organization ;  upon  which  in  some  form 
or  another  the  working  class  will  have  to  rely 
more  and  more  in  its  conflict  with  the  industrial 
overlords.  ^. 


IV 

POLITICS 

Politics  is  generally  defined  as  the  science  of 
government.  This  smacks  somewhat  of  the  Ren- 
naissance  when  princes  amused  themselves  with 
what  they  called  politics,  and  practiced  a  devious 
and  complicated  art  which  bore  some  relation  to 
the  obscure  and  generally  disreputable  trade  of 
diplomacy.  Where  a  privileged  class  is  en- 
trenched in  power,  or  the  members  of  a  privi- 
leged class  are  so  organized  that  they  control  the 
government,  politics  is  an  art  or  game  allowing 
of  the  playing  for  stakes,  in  the  shape  of  office, 
and  making  a  pleasurable  and  exciting  pastime 
for  those  whose  leisure  is  assured  by  virtue  of 
their  economic  security. 

The  existence  of  a  limited  class  enjoying  the 
suffrage  and  the  consequent  accentuation  of  fam- 
ily importance  contribute  to  make  the  holding  of 
office  more  secure  and  politics  a  dignified  pur- 
suit. Under  such  circumstances  we  find  that 
certain  very  able  individuals  are  produced;  that 
the  arts  of  political  controversy  and  oratory  are 
cultivated  and  that  the  game  proceeds  according 
to  certain  well  observed  regulations.  That,  in 
short,  politics  has  its  etiquette  as,  indeed,  even 
military  art  has  under  such  circumstances.  Such 
an  attitude  was  naturally  rendered  so  much  the 
easier  by  the  interesting  fact  that  gentlemen  in 
question   seldom   hurt  one  another  but  the   in- 

153 


154  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

feriors  paid  in  their  persons  and  in  their  prop- 
erty for  the  game  played  by  their  superiors, 

England  and  the  United  States,  particularly, 
the  Southern  States,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  na- 
tional development,  furnish  abundant  examples 
of  this  attitude  in  political  affairs.  The  great 
figures  of  the  dominant  political  parties  strut 
across  the  stage  of  history ;  their  very  manner 
is  the  same ;  the  style  of  speech  is  moreover  al- 
most identical  and  both  English  and  American 
political  leaders  sought  their  models  in  the  class- 
ical statesmen  and  orators  who  were  produced 
under  conditions  economically  very  similar  to 
those  which  made  the  landholding  class  in  Eng- 
land and  the  Southern  aristocracy  in  this  Coun- 
try for  a  time  the  governing  power.  Numerous 
instances  to  the  same  effect  may  be  found  in 
European  history.  It  may  be  safely  stated  that 
where  a  class  is  supreme  and  has  no  immediate 
fear  for  its  future  eminence,  and  where  that 
class  practically  controls  the  avenues  of  public 
distinction,  politics  is  an  art  or  game 
manipulated  for  the  pleasure  and  exhilaration  of 
members  of  the  dominant  class. 

It  is  a  game  played,  however,  within  certain 
limits,  for  the  dominant  class  takes  good  care 
never  to  imperil  its  own  interests.  The  joust- 
ings  of  the  rivals  are  confined  within  narrow 
lists  and  none  but  gentlemen  can  wear  armor 
and  ride  curvetting  horses  in  face  of  the  vulgar. 
It  is  the  art  of  manipulating  governmental  power. 
It  frequently  under  the  circumstances  above  de- 
scribed, is  no  more  than  the  struggle  of  rival  in- 
dividualism for  position  and  is  practically  always 
so  where  the  contest  for  political  supremacy  of 


POLITICS  155 

rival  economic  classes  has  not  become  sufficiently 
obvious  to  cause  the  elimination  of  the  personal 
question  in  a  fight  for  actual  existence. 

Such  a  condition  of  society  as  we  have  been 
considering  implies  that  the  democratic  point  in 
development  has  not  been  reached.  It  necessi- 
tates a  limited  superior  class. 

But  when  in  the  course  of  economic  and  con- 
sequently of  governmental  development  we  ar- 
rive at  the  stage  of  democracy,  the  term  politics 
begins  to  take  on  another  and  more  sinister 
meaning  than  heretofore. 

This  secondary  meaning  is  given  in  the  dic- 
tionaries as  "The  management  of  a  political 
party."  This,  however,  implies  something  more 
intellectual  and  subtle  than  what  we  term  politics 
at  the  present  day  and  is  in  reality  a  sort  of 
statesmanship  which  consists  in  the  shaping  of 
material  to  conscious  political  ends,  an  art  which 
has  become  almost  lost  owing  largely  to  the 
rapidity  with  which  modern  conditions  change 
their  mutual  relations  by  reason  of  the  revolu- 
tionary character  of  the  economic  substructure- 
scientific  processes,  technic,  mechanical  develop- 
ment, and  the  like. 

This  secondary  meaning  of  politics  is  there- 
fore nothing  more  than  the  art  of  marshalling 
votes.  Government  in  a  democracy,  no  matter 
what  its  real  basis,  must  rest  ostensibly  at  least 
on  a  popular  basis,  that  is,  on  a  voting  majority, 
and  as  there  is  a  demand  for  those  who  are 
able  to  so  manipulate  public  opinion  or  lack  of 
opinion,  or  whatever  else  tends  to  set  a  majority 
of  people  voting  in  a  given  direction  at  a  given 
time,  the  supply  is  provided  to  meet  the  demand 


156  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

and  the  politician  as  we  know  him  in  this  most 
modern  of  democracies  steps  upon  the  scene. 

The  object  of  modern  poHtics  is  the  marshall- 
ing of  votes.  But  as  we  have  seen,  there  are 
conflicting  economic  classes  and  therefore  con- 
flicting economic  ends  to  be  secured  which  of 
necessity  imply  conflicting  governmental  con- 
cepts. So  the  votes  are  marshalled  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  governmental  needs  of  the  dominant 
economic  class.  The  interests  of  the  various 
sections  of  the  dominant  class  may  not  be  identi- 
cal, in  fact  they  seldom  are,  but  give  rise  to 
the  play  of  politics  in  a  modern  democracy  some- 
what analogous  to  the  play  of  politics  hereto- 
fore described  under  conditions  prior  to  the  ad- 
vent of  a  democracy. 

The  whole  of  the  capitalistic  era  has  been 
filled  with  just  such  conflicts.  Conservative  and 
Liberal,  Republican  and  Democrat,  what  are  they 
but  representatives  of  the  diverse  interests  of  the 
various  sections  of  the  capitalist  overlords,  play- 
ing, however,  within  a  limited  sphere,  so  that 
the  political  manoeuverings  do  not  threaten  the 
actual  persistence  of  the  overlordship  ? 

The  essential,  therefore,  of  political  action  is 
an  economic  basis ;  one  must  discover  an  eco- 
nomic foundation  for  a  political  party,  and  no 
other  foundation  will  do.  But  when  once  that 
economic  basis  is  found  or  declares  itself,  forth- 
with and  automatically  a  political  party  forms 
itself  upon  that  economic  basis.  It  may  not 
always  be  a  political  party  as  we  generally  use 
the  expression,  that  is,  an  organized  voting  body, 
whose  avowed  purpose  is  the  employment  of 
recognized   constitutional  methods   for  the  pur- 


POLITICS  157 

pose  of  obtaining  governmental  power,  but  it 
will  be  a  political  party  in  the  sense  that  it  aims 
at  control  of  the  government  whether  it  uses 
votes  for  that  purpose  or  not.  In  the  slang 
phrase  of  the  platform  it  becomes  a  revolution- 
ary or  an  evolutionary  political  party.  (A  popu- 
lar but  quite  idiotic  distinction.) 

In  a  democracy  it  naturally  becomes  a  voting 
political  party,  and  so  far,  modern  democracy 
is  a  great  advance  in  that  it  forms  a  ready 
way  of  determining  the  relative  strength  of  op- 
posing forces  without  recourse  to  physical  con- 
flicts. When  an  inferior  economic  class  has  de- 
veloped sufficient  strength  to  be  effective  that 
class  obtains  the  ballot  and  the  struggle  is  trans- 
ferred from  the  physical  force  plane  to  that  of 
voting. 

Even  when  the  class  in  question  has  no  ballot 
it  obtains  the  suffrage  as  soon  as  its  display  of 
economic  strength  is  sufficient  to  render  its  ac- 
quisition a  matter  of  course,  or  its  support  is 
necessary  to  an  economic  superior. 

Perhaps  the  case  of  the  chartists  is  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  in  this  connection.  A  proleta- 
rian uprising  based  upon  an  economic  condition. 
i.  e.,  the  status  of  a  wage-working  class  under 
a  regime  of  free  competition  and  laissez-faire 
eventuated  in  an  abortive  uprising  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  a  political  leverage.  It  will  be 
observed  that  the  demands  of  the  chartists  were 
purely  political  demands  and  that  the  insurrec- 
rectionists  failed  to  achieve  their  object.  The 
cause  of  the  failure  was.  of  course,  lack  of  ma- 
terial to  achieve.  The  legitimacy  of  the  demands 
and   their   politico-ethical   significance   were   in- 


158  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

dubitable,  for  very  nearly  all  of  them  have  been 
since  admitted  and  have  become  statute  law. 
Why  then  did  the  chartists  fail?  The  fact  is 
that  though  they  had  an  economic  basis  for  their 
pohtical  demands  they  had  no  material  economic 
power  with  which  to  enforce  those  demands. 

Deprived  of  the  ballot  and  unable  to  operate 
in  the  field  of  actual  pohtics  they  turned  to  poli- 
tics indirectly,  that  is,"  they  set  to  work  upon  the 
formation  of  economic  organizations ;  pure  and 
simple  trade  unions.  In  the  formation  and  con- 
duct of  these  unions  they  eschewed  politics,  they 
ceased  to  take  any  notice  of  actual  politics  in 
their  economic  organizations,  in  fact  they  made 
rules  in  these  organizations  against  the  discus- 
sion of  politics.  But  they  developed  their  eco- 
nomic power;  they  came  into  conflict  with  the 
economic  power  of  the  capitalistic  overlords  in 
the  shop  and  won  victories,  step  by  step,  achiev- 
ing power  which  forced  their  opponents  to  take 
notice  of  them  and  which  made  their  economic 
position  in  the  state  more  and  more  positive. 

Just  as  certain  as  their  economic  power  grew 
so  also  did  political  recognition  grow  with  it. 
The  franchise  which  they  had  vainly  sought  by 
insurrectionary  means  became  theirs  as  soon  as 
the  economic  force  which  they  wielded  became 
sufficiently  great  to  render  the  denial  of  it  prac- 
tically impossible.  The  reflex  in  politics  was 
complete ;  so  that  the  very  economic  movement, 
which  they  had  differentiated  from  a  political 
movement  was  in  itself  indirectly  political  and 
resulted  in  the  franchise,  the  entry  of  the  class 
into  political  action  proper,  and  the  formation  of 
a  labor  party,   which  functions  as  the  political 


POLITICS  159 

representative  of  the  economic  interests  of  the 
same  class  which  so  unsuccessfully  pursued  the 
demands  of  the  charter,  a  craft  union  labor  po- 
litical party. 

That  the  victory  was  not  more  complete,  and 
that  the  labor  political  movement  does  not  func- 
tion in  terms  of  the  proletariat  is  consequent 
solely  from  the  fact  that  the  initial  economic 
movement  was  not  proletarian  but  a  movement 
in  the  direction  of  craft  protection.  The  political 
efifect  does  not  transcend  the  original  economic 
cause;  it  reflects  no^more  than  the  actual  eco- 
nomic power.  In  this  case  the  actual  economic 
power  was  that  of  the  craft  trades  unions  and 
that  certainly  was  very  completely  reflected  even 
to  the  recognition  of  its  personal  representatives 
as  cabinet  ministers  and  in  many  other  minor 
political  and  magisterial  offices. 

The  same  results  are  seen  still  more  clearly  in 
the  later  political  development  in  Australia,  in 
fact,  practically  every  advanced  country  bears 
marks  in  its  political  life  of  the  growth  and  de- 
velopment of   the  trade  union. 

The  phrase  "To  go  into  politics"  on  the  part 
of  the  working  class  has  arisen  in  a  discussion 
of  the  question  as  to  whether  political  economic 
action  is  more  advisable.  There  are  no  grounds 
for  discussion  on  this  subject. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  working  class  will  first 
function  economically,  that  is,  at  its  point  of 
contact  with  the  opposing  class  in  the  shop ;  but 
such  conflict  will  have  assuredly  political  re- 
sults ;  they  are  unavoidable.  Economic  action 
will  mirror  itself  more  and  more  in  political 
action  as  it  develops  strength,  and  as  the  ambi- 


160  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

tion,  indeed  necessity,  to  control  becomes  more 
and  more  evident  with  economic  success. 

THE  GOVERNMENT 

The  political  struggle  is  for  the  purpose  of 
gaining  governmental  power. 

The  government  is  the  machinery  by  which 
the  dominant  economic  class  is  enabled  to  con- 
trol the  resources  of  the  community  over  which 
it  presides.  Government  implies  power  of  tax- 
ation and  control  of  the  armed  forces.  The  one 
supplements  the  other,  and  both  are  exercised 
by  the  class  in  possession  of  the  government. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  this,  it  is  a  statement 
as  old  as  knowledge  of  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment. Yet  it  seems  to  be  most  difficult  for  the 
average  man  to  grasp  the  notion  in  its  entirety. 
He  has  always  been  taught  that  government 
is  the  will  of  the  people,  and  yet  he  finds  a 
government  which  is  manifestly  not  the  will  of 
the  people.  He  is  brought  into  collision  with 
the  governmental  powers  in  a  fashion  which 
he  cannot  conceive  as  being  possible  did  govern- 
ment represent  the  will  of  the  people,  or  to  be 
more  concise,  his  will. 

The  tyranny,  the  stupidity,  and  the  actual  bru- 
tality of  government  and  the  representatives  of 
government,  fill  him  with  dismay  and  indigna- 
tion and  forthwith  he  conceives  government  to 
be  that  against  which  the  attack  should  be  di- 
rected— the  accursed  thing,  and  he  is  ready  to 
step  upon  the  slippery  slide  of  anarchism. 

The  government  which  should  be  close  to  the 
average  man  according  to  the  democratic  theory 
and  which  should  mirror  his  ideas  and  hopes,  ap- 


POLITICS  161 

pears  to  be  something  distinct  and  distant.  It 
seems  to  have  its  own  entity  and  to  occupy  an 
exalted  sphere,  to  be  clothed  with  thunder  and 
armed  with  relentless  authority.  It  is  anything 
but  the  echo  of  the  voice  and  aspirations  of  the 
plain  people  who  make  up  the  mass  of  the 
nation. 

If  government  appears  thus  to  the  average 
American,  what  must  it  seem  to  the  man  who 
perforce  is  brought  into  collision  with  it?  To 
the  out-of-work  tramping  in  search  of  employ- 
ment and  without  means  or  resources,  the 
vagrant  in  the  eyes  of  the  law ;  the  government  is 
an  enemy  which  will  seize  and  imprison  him. 
It  is  a  power  which  will  set  him  to  work  at  en- 
forced labor  without  pay  for  sixty  or  ninety 
days,  and  then  will  loose  him  upon  the  com- 
munity in  no  better  condition  than  before  and 
just  as  much  an  object  of  governmental  attack 
as  ever. 

To  the  ordinary  workman  who  by  reason  of 
his  poverty,  is  helpless  to  rebel  against  robbery 
of  his  wages  or  against  the  destroying  conditions 
in  which  he  is  obliged  to  work,  government  looms 
up  as  a  colossal  monster. 

He  blames  government ;  and  the  anarchist  lec- 
turer who  translates  hatred  of  government  in 
the  heart  of  the  outraged  workingman  into  words 
can  always  gain  the  applause  and  frequently 
the  adherence  of  the  latter. 

Yet  to  attack  government  is  folly.  Govern- 
ment is  an  intangible  thing  and  is  impervious  to 
attack.  In  fact  the  anarchists  themselves  who 
are  not  satisfied  with  talk  but  actually  desire  to 
accomplish  something,  direct  their  attack  from 


162  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

government  to  the  persons  composing  govern- 
ment and  we  get  the  useless  propaganda  of  the 
deed.  This  only  tends  to  render  the  threatened 
government  officials  angry  so  that  they  resort  to 
methods  of  reprisal  against  which  the  rebellious 
are  unable  to  contend,  for  lack  of  material  power. 

For  it  must  be  forgotten  that  the  basis  of 
government  is  material  power.  To  strike  at  the 
government  or  at  governmental  officials  and  not 
to  strike  at  the  material  power  in  terms  of 
which  government  exists  is  a  futility. 

Government  rests  upon  the  necessities  of  a 
superior  economic  class  and  cannot  be  reached 
except  through  an  attack  upon  the  economic 
position  of  that  class.  As  soon  as  the  fact  of 
the  illusory  nature  of  governmental  power  is 
grasped  it  is  seen  at  once  that  there  is  no  need 
to  attack  governments  or  governmental  officiafs, 
that  it  is  waste  effort  in  fact,  even  if  nothing 
worse. 

Terrorism  does  not  terrify  for  any  long  period 
and  is  by  no  means  a  satisfactory  method  of  dis- 
posing of  enemies  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
is  too  expensive  for  the  terrorists.  It  cannot 
be  denied  that  governmental  power  may  be 
shocked  to  a  certain  extent  by  terrorism,  and 
that  governmental  action  against  the  revolution 
may  even  be  checked  momentarily  by  the  con- 
fusion due  to  some  blow  delivered  under  the 
proper  conditions.  But  no  such  blow  can  be 
effective  nor  can  it  produce  even  temporary  re- 
sults unless  there  is  a  large  body  of  public 
opinion  behind  it  and  a  fighting  organization 
which  will  render  the  persistent  striking  of  such 
blows  probable.    However,  when  a  revolutionary 


POLITICS  163 

movement  has  attained  these  dimensions  there 
is  Httle  need  for  such  manifestations  as  are 
embraced  in  the  propaganda  of  the  deed,  and  as 
a  matter  of  fact  they  seldom  occur.  Terrorism 
is  in  itself  an  admission  of  weakness,  a  confes- 
sion that  the  economic  power  of  the  revolution- 
ary body  is  not  such  that  it  has  been  able  to 
develop  a  political  representation,  either  in  the 
form  of  a  vast  economic  organization  able  to 
operate  successfully  within  a  given  sphere,  or  a 
political  party  which  is  able  to  bring  direct  pres- 
sure upon  a  government  by  virtue  of  the  position 
which  its  power  gives  it.  It  need  not  be  here 
insisted  that  one  of  these  manifestations  of  eco- 
nomic power  would  imply  the  other,  that  both 
would  exist  simultaneously  and  therefore  there 
would  be  no  necessity  for  any  attack  upon  gov- 
ernment. The  only  demonstration  would  be 
against  the  governing  class  and  would  consist  on 
the  one  hand  of  knocking  out  its  economic  props 
by  industrial  conflict,  and  on  the  other  of  directly 
embarassing  the  governmental  functions  by  po- 
litical action,  i  e.,  demonstrations  in  the  repre- 
sentative bodies  and  in  public  tending  to  dis- 
credit and  to  harass  the  exercise  of  those  f  auc- 
tions. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  the  most  vio- 
lent controversial  attacks  upon  government  de- 
livered by  the  anarchists  may  be  fully  admitted 
and  yet  the  movement  towards  the  overthrow  of 
that  tyranny  not  advanced  one  iota  thereby.  The 
young  and  impetuous,  the  foolish  theorists  and 
the  propagandists  of  the  deed  dash  their  head 
against  the  intangible  thing  in  vain.  Govern- 
ment is  phantom-like,  one  cannot  tell  where  it 


164  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

begins  and  where  it  ends.  It  is  pervasive ;  it 
resembles  the  aura  which  it  is  said  by  some  sur- 
rounds each  human  being.  One  conceives  a  dis- 
Hke  to  the  aura  of  an  enemy  and  proceeds  to 
demoHsh  that  aura.  A  blow  at  the  aura,  how- 
ever, penetrates  that  most  elusive  and  delicate 
atmosphere,  and  the  list  coming  into  contact 
directly  with  the  proprietor  of  the  aura,  the  latter 
retaliates  in  proportion  to  his  strength.  Thus 
the  aura  smasher  finds  that  he  cannot  break 
that  particular  emanation  without  trying  conclu- 
sions with  the  person  from  whom  it  emanates. 
The  same  argument  applies  with  equal  force 
to  what  is  generally  called  direct  action.  The  an- 
archistic element  in  the  labor  movement  im- 
patient against  all  governments  detests  and  de- 
spises parliamentary  action.  It  resents  the  slow- 
ness and  the  tortuousness  of  political  methods 
and  suspects  every  development  which  has  the 
flavor  of  parliamentarism.  In  this  attitude  it  has 
the  approval  of  a  much  larger  proportion  of 
the  working  class  of  the  country,  than  is  usually 
suspected,  for  there  is  in  the  ordinary  American 
laboring  man  a  distinct  tendency  to  individual- 
ism developed  from  the  history  of  the  country 
itself.  The  political  exposures  and  scandals 
which  have  attached  themselves  to  administra- 
tions of  all  kinds ;  the  shuffling,  the  doubling 
and  the  actual  dishonesty  of  the  professional 
politicians  have  filled  the  mind  of  the  proletariat 
with  detestation  of  the  very  name  of  politics. 
This  attitude  may  not  only  be  admitted  but 
may  frankly  be  confessed  to  be  justified  by 
events.  But,  even  so,  what  steps  are  to  be  taken, 
other  than  the  same  slow  and  painful  steps  which 
have  been  heretofore  followed? 


POLITICS  165 

The  answer  "Direct  Action"  leads  us  nowhere, 
for  it  still  places  us  face  to  face  with  the  ques- 
tion what  is  Direct  Action?  If  it  means  the 
strike  in  the  shop  and  all  the  other  manifesta- 
tions that  go  with  the  strike,  they  are  with 
us  now. 

To  try  to  subordinate  the  strike  and  boycott 
and  to  place  them  in  an  inferior  position  to  the 
political  action  movement,  is  to  fail  to  compre- 
hend the  very  basis  of  the  proletarian  revolt. 
Political  action  is  a  by-product.  Thereal  essen- 
tial fight  is  the  one  to  be  carried  on  in  the  shop 
and  the  political  party  with  its  parliamentary 
action  cannot  be  other  than  the  reflex  of  the 
actual  political  fight.  "Direct  Action"  in  the 
shape  of  the  ecenomic  struggle  is  the  very  life- 
blood  of  the  revolutionary  movement,  but  such 
direct  action  can  no  more  escape  being  mirrored 
in  the  political  manifestations  of  the  time  than 
a  man  can  escape  his  shadow. 

What  "Direct  Action"  is  it  proposed  shall  take 
the  place  of  the  political  struggle  and  eliminate 
the  political  factor?  The  general  strike?  But 
the  general  strike  cannot  take  place  without  a 
long  period  of  preliminary  contests.  A  general 
strike  does  not  leap  into  the  field;  it  is  the  prod- 
uct of  painfully  and  carefully  prepared  indus- 
trial organization.  It  implies  that  many  minor 
industrial  conflicts  have  occurred  before  the  gen- 
eral strike  makes  its  appearance  and  each  one 
of  the  minor  conflicts  will  have  mirrored  itself 
in  politics  and  will  have  produced  proponents 
of  the  strike  in  the  various  political  bodies.  Such 
a  result  is  unescapable,  given  a  democracy,  a 
prime  essential  of  the  social  revolution.    For,  at 


166  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

leasts  as  far  as  we  know,  the  development  of  the 
proletariat  to  the  point  of  becoming  a  revolu- 
tionary force  implies  the  development  of  modern 
industry  with  its  by-products  of  popular  educa- 
tion, suffrage,  and  the  other  concomitants  of  the 
regime  of  liberalism. 

To  declare  that  any  form  of  direct  action  can 
be  independent  of  political  results  is  to  state  an 
obvious  absurdity  for  results  will  follow  auto- 
matically. Not  only  so,  but  the  economic  facts 
which  in  their  turn  form  the  justifying  basis 
of  the  so-called  "Direct  Action,"  will  have  re- 
flected themselves  in  the  political  world  in  pro- 
portion to  the  degree  of  importance  of  those 
facts  as  compared  with  the  other  economic  facts, 
all  of  which  taken  together  form  the  economic 
milieu  of  a  given  society  at  a  given  time.  Kaut- 
sky  recognizes  this  when  he  says  in  "The  Road 
to  Power"  (p.  95  Samuel  A.  Block,  Chicago), 
"Strikes  in  those  branches  of  industry  that  are 
dominated  by  employers'  associations  and  which 
play  an  important  part  in  the  general  economic 
life  tend  more  and  more  to  take  on  a  political 
character.  On  the  other  hand,  opportunities 
come  with  increasing  frequency  in  the  purely 
political  struggle  (for  example,  battles  for  the 
suffrage)  in  which  mass  strikes  may  be  used  as 
an  effective  weapon." 

"So  it  is  that  the  unions  are  compelled  more 
and  more  to  take  up  political  tasks.  In  England 
as  in  France,  in  Germany  as  well  as  in  Austria, 
they  are  turning  more  and  more  towards  politics. 
This  is  the  justified  kernel  of  the  syndicalism  of 
the  Romance  countries,  unfortunately,  however, 
■is  a  result  of  its  anarchistic  origin  this  kernel 


POLITICS  167 

is  buried  in  a  desert  of  anti-parliamentarism. 
And  yet  this  "Direct  Action"  of  the  unions  can 
operate  effectively  only  as  an  auxiliary  and  rein- 
forcement to  and  not  as  a  substitute  for  parlia- 
mentary action/' 

The  second  paragraph  does  not  apply  to  this 
country,  and  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  it  applies 
to  Great  Britain  or  France.  In  Germany,  where 
the  bourgeois  political  conditions  are  not  yet  de- 
veloped in  their  entirety,  the  political  struggle 
occupies  the  center  of  the  stage.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, a  working  class  political  struggle  but  an 
effort  of  the  actual  economic  values  of  the  bour- 
geoisie to  mirror  themselves  in  the  national  poli- 
tics. The  unions  turn  more  and  more  towards 
politics  because  their  economic  fight  compels  it, 
they  must  demonstrate  their  economic  values  on 
the  political  field.  The  conclusion  to  the  para- 
graph therefore,  is  not  correct.  "Direct  Action" 
is  not  an  "auxiliary  and  reinforcement"  to  par- 
liamentary action.  It  is  the  impulse  and  neces- 
sary stimulus  to  parliamentary  action.  Without 
"Direct  Action,"  in  the  sense  of  economic  move- 
ment there  can  be  no  proletarian  parliamentary 
action ;  on  the  other  hand  economic  action  cannot 
avoid  reflecting  itself  in  parliamentary  action.  The 
most  recent  and  convincing  fact  in  support  of 
this  view  is  the  action  of  the  French  parliamen- 
tary party  at  the  time  of  the  syndicalist  railroad 
strike.  The  "Direct  Action"  carried  on  by  anti- 
parliamentary  syndicalists  found,  in  spite  of  the 
instigators  of  the  strike,  a  parliamentary  ex- 
pression, the  parliamentarians,  on  their  part,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  they  were  smarting  under 
parliamentary  losses   due   to  the   abstention   of 


168  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

direct  actionists  from  the  polls  at  the  preceding 
election  were  compelled  to  act  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  economic  power  of  the  direct  action- 
ists, and  by  their  political  action  to  render  service 
to  the  latter  on  the  political  field. 

The  two  manifestations  are  inseparable.  The 
attempted  exclusion  of  one  or  other  would  be 
impossible.  If  there  is  any  degree  of  relative 
importance  the  balance  would  incline  to  the  eco- 
nomic side,  as  the  necessary  preliminary  to  any 
political  action. 

To  shake  the  economic  foundations  of  the  gov- 
erning class  and  at  the  same  time  to  encroach 
upon  the  machinery  of  government  in  the  hands 
of  that  class  is  obviously  the  present  work  of 
the  proletarian. 

GOOD  AND  BAD  POLITICIANS 

Says  old  Machiavelli,  "As  sovereignty  may  be 
attained  in  two  ways,  without  being  indebted 
either  to  fortune  or  to  virtue,  it  is  proper  that 
I  should  here  detail  them  both ;  though  the  ex- 
amination of  one  of  them  might  perhaps  be  more 
appropriately  placed  under  the  article  republics. 
The  first  is  pursued  by  usurpers  who  attain 
power  by  nefarious  means,  and  the  second  by 
such  private  individuals  who  are  raised  by  their 
fellow  citizens  to  the  dignity  of  princes  of  their 
native  country." 

The  attainment  of  power  by  nefarious  means 
is  the  chief  criticism  of  the  present  conditions  at 
the  hands  of  the  respectable.  The  quaint  para- 
graph above  quoted  makes  clear  the  distinction 
between  the  ideal  and  what  actually  occurs. 

The  method  of  political  distinction  in  a  repub- 
lic is  supposed  to  be  and  has  always  been  taught 


POLITICS  169 

to  be  the  raising  by  their  fellow  citizens  of  pri- 
vate individuals,  by  reason  of  their  virtues,  to 
conspicuous  positions. 

But  there  are  usurpers  who  attain  power  by 
nefarious  means  and  against  them  are  launched 
all  the  thunders  of  the  respectable. 

Politics  must  be  cleansed  or  the  republic  will 
perish,  say  the  Puritans.  They  maintain  that 
American  institutions  are  as  nearly  perfect  as 
human  ingenuity  can  devise,  but  the  existence  of 
bad  men  nullifies  the  beneficent  operation  of  the 
institutions.  Hence  the  Augean  stables  must  be 
flushed  and  none  but  good  men  returned  to 
office.  The  call  for  good  men  has  resounded 
through  the  land. 

In  one  sense,  this  cry  justifies  the  criticisms 
passed  upon  governmental  institutions  and  is  a 
recognition  of  the  truth  of  charges  made  by 
the  muckrakers  and  a  confession  of  the  political 
abuses  which  have  followed  in  the  train  and  be- 
come the  most  notorious  advertisement  of  the 
greater  capitalism. 

The  latter  of  the  two  methods  of  obtaining 
political  distinction  as  given  by  Machiavelli  is 
the  one  ostensibly  aimed  at  in  a  representative 
democracy.  Private  individuals  who  are  raised 
to  dignity  by  their  fellow  citizens  form,  or  should 
form  in  the  estimation  of  political  idealists  the 
governing  body,  and  should  have  the  machinery 
of  government  in  their  hands.  Thi^  moral  histre 
is  supposed  to  supply  the  place  of  social  and 
class  prestige  which  have  been  the  accompani- 
ments and  ornaments  of  administrative  officials 
in  monarchical  countries. 


170  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Given  a  small  community  in  which  the  people 
are  at  about  the  same  social  and  economic  level, 
such  a  community  as  was  predicated  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  republic  and  the  ideal,  barring  ac- 
cidents and  limitations,  is  not  far  from  being 
practically  realized.  Keen  struggles  for  political 
power  in  a  community  where  the  contestants  are 
well  known,  where  their  private  life  as  well  as 
their  public  record  are  matters  of  general  in- 
formation would  naturally  be  carried  on  within 
certain  well  defined  bounds.  In  this  respect  po- 
litical strife  in  a  small  and  comparatively  poor 
community  would  approximate  very  closely  in 
standard  to  political  strife  among  the  members 
of  a  highly  favored  class  like  the  English  gov- 
erning class  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

There  would  be,  moreover,  a  distinct  ethical 
advantage  in  the  case  of  the  republic.  Among 
the  members  of  the  superior  caste  ordinary 
morals  indeed  were  held  secondary  to  established 
position  and  intellectual  ability.  In  the  republic 
the  necessity  of  appeal  to  the  average  man  who 
may  not  so  readily  detect  intellectual  superiority 
but  is  sensitive  to  the  prevailing  ethical  code, 
necessitates  a  demand  for  men  who  are  able  to 
go  before  the  mass  of  ordinary  citizens  void 
of  ofifense  in  the  general  public  estimation.  This 
was  unquestionably  the  case  in  the  early  days 
of  the  republic.  The  standard  of  public  morals 
was  fairly  high  and  in  the  well  settled  and  es- 
tablished communities  political  life  was  decorous 
enough.  It  is  easy  of  course  to  point  out  ex- 
amples of  bribery  and  corruption,  of  manipulat- 
ing votes,  and  of  all  the  little  tricks  which  are 
inseparable    from    contests    in    which    only    the 


POLITICS  171 

strictest  watching  can  prevent  men  from  taking 
advantage  of  one  another.  But  there  was  no 
wholesale  corruption.  Such  cheating  as  there 
happened  to  be  was  small  and  local  and  consisted 
of  the  petty  frauds  which  members  of  a  com- 
munity engaged  in  small  business  would  be  likely 
to  practice  on  one  another. 

When  we  arrive  at  the  point,  however,  where 
there  is  a  conflict  between  the  law  and  the  eco- 
nomic interests  of  a  rising  class  a  new  condition 
arises.  Then  ability  to  break  the  law  becomes  a 
commodity  which  has  a  distinct  value  in  the 
market,  and  a  premium  is  placed  upon  the  un- 
ethical. Thereupon  arises  the  professional  poli- 
tician, in  the  bad  and  modern  sense. 

The  trade  of  professional  politician  is  looked 
upon  with  some  scorn  under  any  circumstances. 
Such  scorn  is,  however,  traditional  and  is  a  sur- 
vival of  the  opinion  held  by  a  class  rich  enough 
to  make  an  avocation  of  politics  and  which 
therefore  despised  those  who  demanded  pay  for 
political  services. 

In  a  social  state  where  poor  men  are  eligible 
for  political  position  a  bare  living,  at  least,  must 
be  provided  for  those  who  give  their  time  and 
ability  to  political  life.  Politics  thereupon,  be- 
comes a  trade  but  not  necessarily  an  evil  trade. 
Where,  however,  the  funds  provided  for  the 
maintenance  of  politicians  are  not  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  maintain  the  appearance  of  pros- 
perity essential  to  their  social  position,  the  pro- 
fessional, who,  after  all,  must  make  his  career 
in  the  life  which  he  has  marked  out  for  himself 
as  his  chosen  vocation,  becomes  inclined  to  sup- 
plement his  income  by  irregular  and  dishonest 


172  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

additions.  He  thus  becomes  an  object  of  mer- 
chandise and  offers  his  services  to  those  who 
having  specific  pohtical  work  to  do  are  ready 
to  pay  for  it. 

This  is  already  an  acknowledged  fact  that  in 
the  United  States  and  all  sorts  of  remedies  are 
proposed.  One  of  the  most  favored  of  these 
is  to  increase  the  pay  of  politicians  to  the  point 
where  they  would  not  be  so  likely  to  succumb 
to  temptation  at  the  hands  of  the  wealthy.  This 
is  a  remedy  favored  strongly  by  the  fairly  pros- 
perous who,  judging  the  pay  of  professional 
politicians,  in  comparison  with  their  own  eco- 
nomic standards  find  it  ludicrously  inadequate. 
But  the  majority  of  the  electorate  on  the  other 
hand  are  inclined  to  think  the  salary  of  a  pro- 
fessional politician  quite  comfortable  in  com- 
parison with  their  own  economic  circumstances 
and  would  oppose  any  wholesale  increase  in  the 
salaries  of  public  officials  as  extravagance  and 
as  tending  to  the  formation  of  favored  class  of 
public  servants  with  incomes  and  social  position 
much  above  the  average  of  their  constituents. 
This  too  was  exactly  the  condition  which  was 
sought  to  be  avoided  at  the  institution  of  the 
government,  and  the  tradition  still  prevails  to 
such  a  degree  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  it 
can  ever  be  upset. 

Moreover,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  an  increase  in  the  economic 
rewards  of  officials  would  tend  to  greater  hon- 
esty in  their  part,  as  there  is  no  probability  that 
the  public  service  could  ever  offer  salaries  at  all 
commensurable  with  the  rewards  which  the 
greater  capitalists  would  hold  out  for  the  per- 
formance of  specific  political  work. 


POLITICS  173 

Such  work  must  of  necessity,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, be  in  contravention  of  the  law.  Other- 
wise it  would  not  be  so  rewarded,  as  tne  ordi- 
nary legal  business  of  the  greater  capitalism 
would  naturally  be  transacted  without  the  ne- 
cessity of  additional  pay,  to  political  representa- 
tives. 

The  solution  of  the  corruption  of  politics  lies 
in  one  of  two  directions,  therefore,  either  the 
greater  capitalism  will  so  completely  control 
affairs  that  the  laws  will  mirror  its  economic- 
necessities  and  the  constitutions  be  so  inter- 
preted  that  those  necessities  have  legal  sanction, 
or  the  greater  capitalism  must  vanish. 

The  former  of  these  alternatives  would  result 
in  the  formation  of  a  dominant  political  caste  as 
in  England.  The  career  of  politics  would  cease 
to  become  a  profession  and  would  be  what  it 
formerly  was  in  England,  an  amusement  of  the 
dominant  class  and  we  should  have  a  condition 
of  affairs  very  similar  to  the  eighteenth  century 
in  England  in  which  the  sons  of  the  dominant 
class  took  an  active  personal  interest  in  politics, 
held  high  official  portions  and  controlled  the  ex- 
ecutive, legislative,  administrative,  and  judicial 
offices.  There  is  no  question  that  under  such 
conditions  the  more  sordid  phenomena  of  poli- 
tics would  tend  to  disappear,  that  actual  bribery 
and  corruption  of  politicians  would  cease  and 
that  the  ambitions  of  personal  leaders  would  be- 
come the  motives  of  immediate  political  action. 

Some  such  solution  of  the  present  conditions 
is  sought  by  the  "better  classes"  who  openly  ex- 
pjress  their  desire  that  the  existing  type  of  poli- 
tician should  be  changed  and  impress  upon  the 


174  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

young  men  of  their  own  class  the  necessity  ot 
taking  up  pohtics  and  removing  the  poHtical 
management  from  the  hands  of  the  demagogues. 
A  beginning  in  that  direction  has  been  made  in 
some  quarters  and  the  advent  of  the  new  type 
has  been  hailed  with  derisive  epithets  such  as 
"Silk-stockings." 

But  the  limited  suffrage  was  one  of  the  chief 
reasons  for  the  continued  possession  of  power 
by  the  limited  aristocratic  group  above  men- 
tioned. Today  those  who  are  advocates  of  se- 
lectness  in  politics  eagerly  discuss  the  limitation 
of  the  voting  power  and  complain  that  the  suff- 
rage rests  upon  too  broad  a  basis.  In  fact,  dis- 
tinct steps  have  been  taken  looking  to  a  limita- 
tion of  the  suffrage  in  various  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. But  such  a  limitation  is  inconceivable  in 
this  or  any  other  modern  community.  The  bour- 
geoisie has  brought  the  suffrage  in  its  train  as 
a  necessary  and  unavoidable  concomitant  of  its 
own  progress,  and  the  enfranchised  voters  will 
march  at  the  funeral  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The 
revival  of  a  privileged  aristocratic  class  in  pos- 
session of  the  economic  power  and  at  the  same 
time  in  exclusive  control  of  the  political  offices 
is  at  the  present  date  in  the  world's  history  an 
impossibility  and  may  be  left  out  of  our  calcula- 
tions. 

The  alternative,  the  elimination  of  the  greater 
bourgeoisie,  can  only  be  accomplished  in  terms 
of  the  triumph  of  the  proletarian,  for  the  pro- 
letarian is  the  only  force  which  can  furnish  the 
motive  power  for  the  destruction  of  that  latest 
form  of  economic  tyranny. 


POLITICS  175 

Granted  the  victory  of  the  working  class  the 
conditions  of  present  day  politics  would  not  be 
very  likely  to  operate  and  such  matters  as  the 
graft  of  politicians    could    not    very    well  arise. 

The  matter  of  good  and  bad  politicians  is  a 
present  day  question,  transitory  and  of  no  par- 
ticular interest  to  the  proletarian. 

Between  good  and  bad  politicians  the  choice 
of  the  proletarian  voter  is  frequently  confined 
to  the  latter.  The  so-called  good  government 
leagues  and  political  purity  leagues  are  most  fre- 
quently opposed  to  the  working  class,  and  the 
latter  suffer  more  conspicuously  at  their  hands 
than  at  the  hands  of  the  bad  politicians.  Thi^ 
arises  from  the  fact  that  those  organizations 
are  generally  controlled  by  the  middle  classes 
and  small  bourgeois  who  find  their  immediate 
economic  interests  in  antagonism  to  the  interests 
of  organized  labor.  They  resent  the  demands 
of  organized  labor,  in  fact,  they  cannot  afTord 
to  accede  to  them  and  maintain  their  position  in 
face  of  the  economic  pressure  to  which  they  are 
subjected  in  their  competition  with  the  greater 
capitalism.  Hence  it  comes  about  that,  generally 
speaking,  the  condition  of  labor  is  worse  in 
those  regions  where  the  small  bourgeoisie  is  in 
power.  The  most  sweeping  municipal  ordinance 
against  trade  union  activities  was  passed  in  Los 
Angeles,  a  town  notoriously  under  the  domina- 
tion of  the  small  bourgeoisie.  In  the  same  State, 
California,  which  is  admittedly  an  advanced  com- 
munity from  the  labor  standpoint,  armed  scabs 
were  allowed  freely  to  walk  about  in  Oakland, 
a  town  under  the  influence  of  the  small  bour- 
geois.   Many  other  such  instances  could  be  given. 


176  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

Generally  speaking,  there  is  an  antipathy  be- 
tween the  good  politicians  and  the  laboring  class, 
arising  from  a  more  or  less  conscious  under- 
standing on  the  part  of  the  workers  of  their 
economic  interests.  So  an  open  appeal  to  ethics 
in  political  matters  is  generally  rebuffed  by  the 
labor  vote,  to  the  disgust  of  the  respectable,  who 
regard  the  attitude  of  the  worker  in  this  matter 
as  evidence  of  his  irredeemable  obtuseness  on 
moral  questions. 

The  question  of  good  government  continually 
arises  at  election  times  but  can  be  dismissed  eas- 
ily for  it  does  not  concern  the  working  class. 
The  shame  of  city  governments  and  the  corrup- 
tion prevailing  in  the  legislatures  are  the  con- 
cern of  the  bourgeois  alone ;  they  do  not  reflect 
upon  the  proletariat,  and  the  latter  suffers  noth- 
ing from  their  persistence,  neither  does  he  gain 
anything  by  their  removal  under  the  present 
conditions  of  society. 

The  only  salvation  of  the  worker  lies  in  his 
independent  political  attitude,  that  determined 
isolation  from  capitalist  politics  which  is  the  re- 
sult of  his  economic  isolation,  and  his  invincible 
antagonism  to  all  that  the  present  system  implies. 

His  political  actions  are  neither  ethical  nor 
unethical ;  they  depend  upon  no  bourgeois  con- 
ceptions as  to  what  constitutes  good  or  bad 
politics.  They  are  aimed  frankly  at  the  acquisi- 
tion of  power  and  derive  their  propulsion  from 
the  immediate  economic  needs  of  the  proletariat 
as  displayed  in  its  industrial  movements. 

MAKING  A  POLITICAL  PARTY 

The  reflex  of  industrial  action  in  politics 
is  so  automatic  that  it  needs  no  deliberately  con- 


POLITICS  177 

striicted  political  party  for  its  manifestation.  In- 
deed where  such  a  party  is  made  with  the  in- 
tention of  giving  representation  to  an  economic 
interest  it  fails  of  its  purpose. 

The  reason  of  this  failure  lies  in  the  fact  that 
such  a  party  is  constructed  by  those  who  are 
dominated  by  theoretical  views  upon  the  abstract 
questions  involved  in  the  matters  at  issue.  In 
so  far  as  those  views  coincide  with  the  material 
necessities  of  a  sufficiently  large  number  of  peo- 
ple to  constitute  a  distinct  economic  class  they 
will  receive  recognition  at  the  hands  of  one  or 
another  of  the  recognized  political  factions ;  al- 
ways provided  that  the  satisfaction  of  the  de- 
mands implied  in  the  economic  movement  does 
not  transcend  the  limits  of  political  action  neces- 
sary for  the  maintenance  of  the  existing  eco- 
nomic regime. 

There  are  many  instances  of  parties  having 
been  brought  unnecessarily  into  the  field  only  to 
be  absorbed  later  by  one  or  other  of  the  recog- 
nized political  parties.  Such  parties  have  served 
rather  as  an  advertisement  of  the  actual  demand 
for  certain  economic  charges,  but  as  soon  as 
that  demand  has  become  sufficiently  loud,  poli- 
ticians anxious  for  office  have  yielded  more  or 
less  acquiescence  and  the  party  which  began 
with  a  flourish  of  trumpets  has  disappeared  with 
an  almost  astonishing  celerity. 

If  the  demand  exists  politicians  will  not  fail 
to  meet  it,  in  fact  not  to  do  so  is  essential 
folly  in  politics.  Such  political  demands  as  can 
be  conceded  are  conceded  by  the  ordinary  poli- 
ticians who  depend  upon  the  Supreme  Court  and 
a  written  constitution  to  drive  back  any  of  the 


178  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

black  sheep  measures  which  may  have  strayed 
from  the  fold  of  respectability. 

The  economic  necessities  of  the  farming  class 
and  a  portion  of  the  small  bourgeoisie  which 
mirrored  themselves  in  the  Populist  movement 
persisted.  They  apparently  failed  of  political 
recognition,  because  the  Democratic  Party  un- 
dertook to  represent  them  and  the  smaller  Peo- 
ple's Party  became  merged  in  the  Democratic 
Party.  The  Democratic  Party  failed  to  achieve 
victory  in  that  the  party  of  the  greater  capital- 
ism, the  Republican,  reflected  a  more  powerful 
economic  force  and  the  party  of  the  small  bour- 
geoisie succumbed  to  superior  strength. 

Did  then  the  political  demands  of  the  small 
bourgeoisie  and  the  farmers  not  receive  recog- 
nition? They  did.  A  number  of  the  political 
changes  which  they  required  have  been  carried 
out  and  are  now  being  carried  out  by  the  reform 
wing  of  the  Republican  Party.  It  would  be 
hard  to  find  a  better  example  of  the  automatic 
political  registering  of  the  demands  of  an  eco- 
nomic class.  Initiative,  referendum,  recall,  di- 
rect primaries,  and  a  number  of  political  changes 
which  in  the  estimation  of  that  class  were  essen- 
tial to  the  political  well  being  of  its  members  have 
all  been  conceded,  and  when  the  Democratic  Party 
failed  the  Republican  Party  itself  produced  the 
exponents  and  the  champions  of  the  smaller  bour- 
geois demands.  To  a  certain  extent  even  their 
economic  demands  apart  from  mere  changes  in 
the  machinery  of  government  have  received 
recognition  and  the  various  recent  attacks  upon 
the  transportation  companies,  for  example,  all 
bear  witness  to  the  political  expression  of  the 
economic  necessities  of  the  small  bourgeoisie. 


POLITICS  179 

The  Socialist  Party  came  into  being  ostensibly 
as  a  proletarian  party,  but  in  reality  representing 
but  one  portion  of  the  working  class,  the  skilled 
labor  element,  which  as  we  have  seen  verges  on 
the  edge  of  the  small  bourgeoisie.  The  Socialist 
Labor  Party,  its  predecessor,  had  detected  the 
now  much  more  evident  truth,  that  the  organized 
American  working  class  as  it  appears  in  the  dis- 
tinctive organization,  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  is  not  in  reality  that  portion  of  the 
American  proletariat  which  can  be  relied  upon 
for  revolutionary  proletarian  action. 

The  Socialist  Labor  Party  thereupon  endeav- 
ored to  bring  into  existence  a  revolutionary 
uionism  which  might  function  as  an  economic 
organization  and  whose  political  exponent  the 
Socialist  Labor  Party  might  be.  This  was  all 
perfectly  correct  from  a  theoretical  standpoint, 
but  it  had  the  essential  weakness  of  being  a 
creation  by  fiat.  Lassalle  says  that  no  one  makes 
revolutions;  neither,  in  fact,  does  any  one  make 
industrial  movements  or  political  parties.  They 
grow,  and  they  grow  not  according  to  schedule. 
At  any  rate  it  is  sufficient  to  say  at  present  that 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party  took  a  position  which 
development  and  the  process  of  political  change 
have  shown  to  have  been  theoretically  correct. 

The  Socialist  Party  was  formed  of  those  mem- 
bers of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  and  others  who 
had  progressed  no  further  in  their  intellectual 
sociological  grasp  than  the  point  of  view  of  the 
economic  interests  of  the  organized  skilled  la- 
borer. Out  of  this  element  in  addition  to  the 
thoroughly  whipped  and  correspondingly  discon- 
tented small  bourgeoisie  the  Socialist  Party  was 


180  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAT 

formed.  The  demand  for  its  existence  has  been 
evidenced  by  its  growth,  it  has  become  more 
and  more  the  exponent  of  the  economic  concepts 
of  the  skilled  artisan,  the  small  storekeeper,  the 
unsuccessful  professional  man,  and  all  that 
heterogeneous  mass  of  discontented  and  dis- 
satisfied which  finds  no  other  political  expres- 
sion. 

The  platform  of  the  Socialist  Party  therefore 
represents  the  hodge-podge  demands  of  the  dis- 
contented. As  a  Socialist  Party  and  claiming  to 
represent  the  proletariat  as  a  whole  it  attracts 
to  its  ranks  those  who  find  in  a  clear  proletarian 
platform  the  only  solution  of  the  problems  in- 
herent in  the  present  economic  system.  As  the 
representative  of  the  smaller  bourgeoisie  and 
the  skilled  organized  labor  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  the  Socialist  Party  must  more 
and  more  endeavor  to  realize  actual  political 
power  in  terms  of  the  economic  interests  which 
brought  it  into  being  and  which  sustain  it.  Be- 
tween these  elements  there  is  of  necessity  con- 
flict and  the  gulf  is  unbridgable. 

The  exponent  of  the  proletarian  doctrine  be- 
comes the  advocate  of  the  industrial  form  of  or- 
ganization and  would  confine  the  platform  of 
the  party  to  a  revolutionary  statement,  leaving 
the  rest  free  for  the  development  of  conditions 
and  the  handling  of  proletarian  interests  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  progress  of  the  economic  fight. 

The  official  wing,  however,  of  the  Socialist 
Party  as  the  representative  of  a  non-revolution- 
ary body,  i.  e.,  the  skilled  artisan  element  and  the 
small  bourgeoisie,  feels  that  it  must  produce 
actual  political  results,  must  win  elections,  must 


POLITICS  181 

gain  administrative  control,  and  in  fact  must  op- 
erate, as  these  officials  declare,  as  a  live  and 
efficient  political  expression.  In  this  respect, 
however,  the  Socialist  Party  suffers  a  serious  han- 
dicap. In  so  far  as  its  aims  are  not  revolutionary 
its  program  can  be  more  or  less  readily  adopted 
by  one  or  other  of  the  ordinary  political  parties 
vi^hich  can  take  over  the  demands  of  organized 
labor  and  the  smaller  bourgeoisie  as  the  demands 
of  the  Populists  have  been  shown  to  have  been 
taken  over.  A  larger  party  can  do  this  the  more 
readily  as  it  can  give  more  plausible  promises  of 
accomplishment.  That  such  a  party  actually  car- 
ries out  some  of  its  promises  has  been  shown  in 
the  last  legislature  of  California  where  the  re- 
form Republican  wing,  without  having  received 
conspicuous  trade  union  support  at  the  preceding 
election,  nevertheless  actually  accomplished  and 
endeavored  to  accomplish  more  legislation  on 
behalf  of  the  trade  unions  than  the  Socialist 
Party  in  its  State  platform  was  able  to  promise 
them.  Under  such  conditions  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  Socialist  Party  will  find  it  no  easy  matter 
to  compete  with  the  older  parties  in  the  effort 
to  secure  the  organized  labor  vote  as  long  as  the 
demands  of  organized  labor  are  kept  within  the 
frontiers  of  the  admittedly  respectable. 

Were  the  continued  existence  of  the  Socialist 
Party  dependent  upon  its  present  attitude  to- 
wards the  pure  and  simple  labor  unions  and 
the  small  bourgeoisie  its  term  of  life  would  be 
brief  for  the  reasons  above  stated.  How  brief, 
a  recent  incident  in  California  politics  will  show. 
The  Socialist  Party  candidate  for  mayor  won 
the  election  at  Berkeley,  a  town  of  some  forty 


182  THE  MILITANT  PROLETARIAl 

thousand  inhabitants  and  the  seat  of  the  State 
University  upon  a  platform  of  pubHc  ownership 
of  public  utilities.  Immediately  afterwards  the 
official  Republican  wing  at  Oakland,  a  consid- 
erable town  in  close  proximity  to  Berkeley  and 
with  a  much  larger  population  than  Berkeley, 
proclaimed  that  their  candidate  for  mayor  stood 
upon  a  platform  practically  identical  with  that 
of  the  Socialist  candidate  for  Berkeley.  Directly 
the  Socialist  Party  puts  up  a  popular  platform, 
that  is,  a  platform  which  will  receive  the  ap- 
proval of  the  small  bourgeoisie,  the  politicians 
counter  upon  it  with  the  explanation  that  they 
are  Socialists  too  and  will  do  all  that  the  Social- 
ists promise.  This  makes  it  hard  for  the  Social- 
ist Party  and  it  would  speedily  go  the  way  of 
all  minor  propaganda  parties  like  the  People's 
Party  were  it  not  for  the  following  reason: 

The  Socialist  Party  by  its  claim  to  be  a  pro- 
letarian party  and  its  outward  acceptance  of  the 
Socialist  doctrines  of  the  class  struggle  in  addi- 
tion to  its  role  as  apostle  of  the  craft  union  and 
the  small  bourgeoisie,  becomes  the  natural  refuge 
of  the  proletarian  and  the  industrial  unionist. 

This  accommodation  of  two  diverse  elements, 
while  producing  unrest  and  dissension  in  the 
party  is  in  reality  its  salvation.  The  elimination 
of  the  proletarian  element  would  leave  the  party 
rudderless,  and  at  the  mercy  of  those  leaders 
whom  inclination  or  personal  ambition  inclines 
to  the  opportunistic  role.  The  presence  of  this 
proletarian  element  which  is  always  active,  vig- 
orous and  influential,  in  proportion  as  the  eco- 
nomic conditions  of  the  locality  allow  it  to  be  so, 
makes  the  impassable  gulf  between  the  Socialist 
Party  and  the  ordinary  politician.     The  oppor- 


POLITICS  183 

tunist  sees  this  and  frequently  endeavors  to 
make  the  SociaHst  Party  correspond  in  form 
more  closely  to  the  ordinary  political  parties, 
but  the  revolutionary  proletarian  always  objects 
to  any  loosening  and  in  this  way  the  Socialist 
Party  manages  to  maintain  its  existence  and  ac- 
tually to  develop  an  increasing  independence  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  people 
would  undoubtedly  support  most  of  its  immedi- 
ate proposals  and  in  fact  do  so  when  they  are 
made  by  a  recognized  party  other  than  the  So- 
cialist. 

As  the  industrial  movement  grows  and  the 
contest  with  the  employing  class  develops  on  the 
new  plane  the  political  reflex  of  that  industrial 
action  finds  itself  in  the  Socialist  Party.  No 
matter  that  the  Socialist  Party  has  a  reform  plat- 
form at  the  present  time,  no  matter  if  it  flirts 
with  the  small  bourgeoisie  and  is  inclined  to 
the  craft  unionism.  Directly  the  conflict  comes 
at  the  point  of  contact  in  the  shop  the  Socialist 
Party  is  bound  to  take  the  proletarian  side  in  that 
conflict  and  to  challenge  the  legal  basis  of  the 
existing  system,  to  become  in  fact  as  in  name 
a  revolutionary  political  movement.  This  can- 
not be  avoided.  It  has  been  shown  repeatedly 
in  European  politics  and  it  will  of  necessity 
occur  here.  Without  industrial  action  the  Social- 
ist Party  would  be  but  a  somewhat  uninteresting 
symptom  of  trade  union  and  petit-bourgeois  dis- 
content. With  industrial  action  it  of  necessity 
becomes  transformed  into  a  fighting  and  revolu- 
tionary political  organization. 

Thus  the  future,  even  the  political  future,  is 
really  dependent  upon  active,  intelligent  and 
revolutionary  industrial  organization  and  action. 


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DEBS 

His  Life,  Writings  and  Speeches. 

Socialists  are  not  hero- worshipers.  We 
do  not  put  our  faith  in  leaders.  Methods 
of  class  warfare  do  not  come  from  the 
brains  of  the  isolated  scholar,  but  from 
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V.  Debs.  He  is  bone  of  its  bone,  flesh 
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mesh  of  the  labor  movement. 

All  his  writings  that  he  thinksiworth 
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